Raiders of the Lost Ballots
Sometimes it’s fun to see an old movie back in theaters.
Bigger screens. Better sound. More snacks.
Yesterday in Fulton County, the biggest hit of 2020 got its long-awaited rerelease, this time starring agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation executing a search warrant at the Fulton County Elections Office and hauling away thousands of records from the 2020 presidential election.
- Same plot.
- Same villains.
- A little Italian intrigue.
- Same breathless marketing.
Brought to you, once again, by Georgia’s Election Integrity Industrial Complex™.
If this were honest advertising, the poster would feature Indiana Jones—fedora, whip, and flashlight—descending into the archaeological bowels of a county storage warehouse in search of artifacts that might finally rewrite history. Crates would be stamped Audited, Recounted, Certified, Litigated. Cobwebs would cling to boxes labeled 2020.
That’s what this moment is, not an intervention to stop wrongdoing, but an expedition – another dig for something…anything…that might justify years of grievance.
The emotional investment was immediate and unmistakable. Within minutes of the raid becoming public, social media filled with posts declaring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger guilty by implication—mocked as “peeing his pants,” accused of panic, and ridiculed in language that conveyed certainty without evidence.
Governor Brian Kemp was quickly pulled into the same orbit, with demands that both men be “locked up,” as though the mere execution of a search warrant confirmed years of pre-written conclusions. None of these reactions engaged the warrant, the law, or the facts.
They weren’t responses to information, but emotional release, proof that, for the Election Integrity Industrial Complex ™, outrage isn’t a byproduct of the story – it’s the fuel that keeps the expedition going.
Yes, the FBI May Find Mistakes. That’s Not the Point.
Let’s be clear about something the Election Integrity Industrial Complex™ refuses to acknowledge: this investigation will likely find mistakes were indeed made in 2020.
That should come as no surprise to anyone, especially anyone who actually voted in the middle of a once-in-a-century global pandemic. Mistakes in even the best of election environments happen because of one fundamental fact:
Elections are run by humans.
Because of that, paperwork errors happen, but processes evolve and improve.
But this isn’t a revelation. Fulton County’s own attorneys and attorneys in the Secretary of State’s Office have already repeatedly acknowledged past administrative failures, and the county has made marked, documented improvements since 2020. Those fixes didn’t come from social-media outrage or conspiracy documentaries; they came from routine oversight, litigation, legal reform, and the unglamorous work of administration.
In other words, if Indiana Jones opens a crate and finds a mislabeled form, it won’t be proof of a grand secret. It will be proof that local governments learn, adapt, and improve—precisely the opposite of the narrative being sold.
Archaeology Disguised as Accountability
The Election Integrity Industrial Complex ™ doesn’t exist to solve problems. It exists to keep digging.
- When fraud isn’t found, the process is questioned.
- When the process is explained, the paperwork is attacked.
- When the paperwork checks out, the boxes are seized.
- When the boxes reveal nothing new, the search simply moves deeper underground.
This isn’t accountability. It’s archaeology—performed with a bullhorn.
Democratic Amnesia Sets In
The overreaction from Democrats has been just as revealing.
Fulton County District 4 Commissioner Mo Ivory told reporters, “This is not about 2020,” Ivory said. “This is just a mechanism to bring 2020 up and say that Fulton County doesn’t run good elections, that they can’t be trusted, so that people in 2026 won’t feel like their vote is accurately counted. It’s just an entire strategy to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections, and we’re not going to let them do it.”
Many of the same national voices who are condemning the execution of the search warrant demanded that Republicans “respect the process” when the FBI executed court-approved searches involving Donald Trump during the Joe Biden administration. Back then, warrants were warrants. Judges were judges. Law enforcement was law enforcement. It wasn’t at all political…or so they told us.
Now, suddenly, a lawful search is treated as an unprecedented threat to democracy itself.
You can’t have it both ways. Either the rule of law matters, or it doesn’t. It can’t only matter when it’s politically convenient.
As Nancy Pelosi noted back then, “To have a warrant, you need justification. And that says that no one is above the law, not even a president or former president of the United States.”
At least Fulton County Commission Chairman Rob Pitts, after basically claiming that Fulton County has always been the model of election administration – come on…even your own attorneys wouldn’t try to make that claim… put the FBI seizure of the documents in the proper perspective, stating, “We in Fulton County have nothing, nothing, nothing to hide. This is by no means over… any honest review of these files will show what every previous review has shown: Fulton County elections are fair and lawful and the outcome of the 2020 election will not change, period.”
The Real Danger—for Republicans
And here’s the part Republicans should be paying attention to.
Every time the Election Integrity Industrial Complex ™ sends their versions of Indiana Jones back into the warehouse, it keeps Republican candidates (some willfully) trapped in 2020…an election that is long over, legally settled, and electorally irrelevant.
Georgia voters are not begging for another excavation.
They’re begging for answers from the candidates seeking to be our elected leaders as to how they will guide Georgia’s future on the issues voters actually care about:
- affordability
- education
- infrastructure
- public safety
- economic growth
Relitigating 2020 does not win new voters. It exhausts old ones.
The danger isn’t that the FBI will uncover something shocking.
The danger is that Republicans keep signaling, again and again, that they have nothing new to say or offer. Being stuck investigating the past may appease a tiny minority of Republican activists, but it pushes away more voters than it keeps in. What’s more, when the treasure isn’t found, it will sow more distrust in the elections. In the 2021 runoffs, thousands of voters stayed home on claims that their votes were going to be stolen. Republicans suppressed their own votes and handed the majority in the United States Senate to the Democrats.
Time to Leave the Ruins
At some point, the credits roll.
Dr. Jones packs up the artifacts, the warehouse lights go dark, and the audience goes home knowing the ending hasn’t changed. The 2020 election will not be rewritten by another pointless dig, another box, or another breathless headline.
But the Election Integrity Industrial Complex ™ will keep searching, because it can’t survive closure.
Georgia’s voters, however, are ready…more than ready in fact, to move on.
The question is whether Georgia’s politicians, especially Republican politicians, are willing to leave the ruins behind and start talking about the future instead of endlessly replaying the past.
