On January 5, 2022, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed suit against Fulton County for its failure to comply with a September 2021 order by the Office of Open Records to produce all records related to Fulton County’s review of its election results and voting machines.

After the 2020 general election, the county commissioners complied with a request by state Senator Doug Mastriano of Franklin County to conduct a review of its voting machines and election data, a review that was conducted by a private company, Wake TSI. In July 2021, ACLU-PA Legal Director Witold Walczak submitted a Right To Know request with the county for all documents related to the review.

The county initially denied the ACLU-PA’s request, but the Office of Open Records ultimately ruled in the organization’s favor in September, after the organization appealed the denial.

The county later released nearly 700 documents, but, in the lawsuit filed in Fulton County Court of Common Pleas, the ACLU of Pennsylvania states that there are documents missing from that record, documents that the organization’s counsel knows exist through media reports, an open records request by another organization, and those “that logically must exist.”

The plaintiffs are asking the court to require the county to release all documents related to the request, impose fines on the county for failing to follow the law, and award the plaintiffs attorneys’ fees and costs.

Attorney(s)

Marian Schneider and Connor Hayes, ACLU of PA; John R. Dixon and Charles Kelly, Saul Ewing LLP

Date filed

January 5, 2022

Court

Fulton County Court of Common Pleas