FBI Faces Off Over Seized Georgia Election Materials

It's March 27th. This is Canada News Today, driven by AI.

A federal judge in Atlanta is set to hear arguments Friday on whether the FBI must return

ballots in election material seized from Fulton County. Georgia back in late January.

The Ray targeted a warehouse holding records from the 2020 election in the state's most

populous, heavily democratic county. This comes after court order talks between the two sides

broke down without a deal. The FBI grabbed the items as part of a probe into possible irregularities,

like mishandled ballot images, double-scanned votes, and issues with.

Scanner tapes, officials say they're checking violations of laws on record keeping and fraudulent

ballots. It's one of several federal moves raising eyebrows, including subpoenas for audit records

in Arizona and pushes for voter data in other states. Fulton County officials call the seizure

improper and a violation of search protections, arguing and gives the federal government too much

power over. Local elections, they point to common human errors, past state reviews that found

no widespread fraud and even hand recounts confirming Joe Biden's win there, an elections expert

backed them up, claiming the FBI's warrant had misleading info. The Justice Department fires back

that they followed proper steps with a judge approved warrant and accuses the county of trying to

block a criminal. Investigation, they note the county once wanted to destroy some records anyway

and dismiss claims of bad faith by their agent. The judge already blocked the county's push to

question that agent in court. As this plays out, it highlights ongoing tensions over 2020 election

probes and what role federal agencies should take in local voting matters.