by Jay Bookman, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]
September 30, 2026
Nine months ago this week, FBI agents raided the Fulton County elections office, seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots cast in the 2020 election.
According to the subpoena authorizing that seizure, federal officials had “probable cause to believe” that Fulton officials had “knowingly and willfully deprived” the people of Georgia of a “fair and impartially conducted election process” in 2020, just as President Trump had claimed.
Conservatives celebrated the news, certain that the truth – their truth – would now be confirmed. “Georgians have waited years for real answers about what happened in 2020,” as Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon put it.
Then six months passed. Nothing.
In early July, FBI leadership in Washington suddenly ordered “all FBI field offices to immediately surge support to an FBI Atlanta priority investigation,” ordering hundreds of analysts around the country to drop whatever they were doing to assist in the Atlanta vote-fraud investigation.
“Overtime (including weekends and holidays) has been authorized,” the FBI memo noted.
Three months, and tens of thousands of man hours, have since passed since that massive surge. Early voting for the 2026 mid-term elections begins Oct. 13, but nothing more has been heard of the Fulton investigation.
Nothing.
Ordinarily, it might be safe to assume that since nothing has been heard, nothing has been found. If actual evidence of fraud had been discovered, Trump would have demanded a prime-time speech before Congress to announce that he had been vindicated. Given his history, he might even do it without evidence of fraud.
But that hasn’t happened. At least not yet.
In other voting-related news, the U.S. Department of Justice last week claimed success in its campaign to demonstrate that non-citizens have illegally registered to vote in Georgia and elsewhere. Three people – that’s one plus one plus one – were charged with voting illegally in Georgia elections going back as far as 2008, a time frame in which tens of millions of ballots were cast.
All three are isolated, individual cases, with no sign of collusion or an organized conspiracy.
Of course, some will still argue that three is three too many, and in a perfect world, maybe so. But we do not live in that perfect world, and three is far, far too few to alter the outcome of an election, as election conspiracy nuts like to claim.
In fact, three is an absolute repudiation of such claims. After all this time, with all the rhetoric and all the investigatory resources committed to it by the Trump regime, three is all you’ve got?
It could be worse, though. In July, the Trump administration claimed to have found almost 16,000 non-citizens registered to vote in Nevada.
“No way!” said Nevada officials, and after they demanded proof, the administration was forced to reduce its list to 185 supposed non-citizens registered to vote.
“No way!” Nevada officials said again, and once again the list was drastically reduced. After investigation, this time the number went to zero.
Zero is not enough votes to alter the outcome of an election.
Again, these are the results of in-depth, well-resourced investigations by an administration that could not be more committed to finding mass voting fraud, yet time after time they are coming up empty.
It’s time to end this nonsense. While we should always be vigilant in protecting the integrity of elections, we do considerable damage to our democracy by claiming mass fraud where none exists.
Such false claims helped to fuel the attempted coup on Jan. 6. They undermine faith in the legitimacy of our government. They give cover to those who want to destroy our democracy. They encourage people who lose elections to explain it away as cheating, because that’s easier to accept than the fact that they lost.
Such claims also feed demands for complex solutions to problems that simply do not exist on any scale that matters. The additional paperwork, bureaucracy, hassle and expense that would be needed to drive the number of non-citizen voters from three to zero would be immense, and in the process would discourage or prevent thousands of actual citizens from casting ballots and participating in this great country.
It makes no sense. None of it.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jill Nolin for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.