Analysis: Greene’s husband made no absentee request, contradicts records

Published 4:48 pm Thursday, September 15, 2022

ATLANTA — Floyd County elections representatives have provided further details that appear to support U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claims that her husband never requested an absentee ballot in the November 2020 election, despite election records showing otherwise.

During a court hearing earlier this year, Greene continued her claims that voter fraud took place during in 2020 when former President Donald Trump lost the general election.

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She testified under oath — during an April hearing challenging her candidacy for alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection of the Capitol — that her husband did not request a mailed absentee ballot, despite receiving one, and when he showed up to vote in person he was told he had already voted absentee.

“We saw a tremendous amount of voter fraud. We have investigations going on right now in Georgia,” she said. “There is investigation going on in multiple states. My husband showed up to vote and when he went to vote he went to vote in person, he was told he had already voted by absentee ballot when, in fact, he had never requested an absentee ballot. There is many instances.”

Pete McDonald, interim Floyd County elections supervisor at the time, told CNHI that records show Perry Greene requested a mailed ballot, which he had done in previous elections, but did not mail it or put it in a secure drop box.

Instead, McDonald said, he brought the absentee ballot to a polling station, surrendered it to election officials and cast an early in-person vote.

However, new information from Floyd County where Perry Greene voted appears to support his claims that he never requested a ballot.

“I was not working for the Floyd County Board of Elections and Registration during the 2020 election and so I reviewed the Georgia Secretary of State’s E-Net System to see what information I could provide,” McDonald, now permanent elections supervisor, said in an emailed statement. “The E-Net system indicated that a ‘by mail’ absentee ballot was turned in by Mr. Greene prior to him completing an ‘in person’ absentee ballot on 10-23-2020. This is the same record that would have been referred to by any poll worker who was on duty at the time Mr. Greene appeared to vote in person by early ballot.”

Since, McDonald said he’s reviewed additional records and that review leads him to believe the information obtained from the E-Net system was either inaccurate or incomplete.

“In response to an open record request by Mr. Greene’s attorney, my office combed through approximately 10,000 records related to absentee ballots from the 2020 election looking for documents that might indicate that Mr. Greene’s requested a written absentee ballot in advance of the 2020 general election,” McDonald explained. “We did not locate any application from Mr. Greene for a by-mail absentee ballot or the standard yellow envelope provided to return a completed ballot, which would have indicated that a written absentee ballot was requested by and mailed to Mr. Greene.”

Only a “Cancel Ballot Affidavit” completed by Perry Greene with a handwritten note that he did not request a by-mail absentee ballot, and an “application for in person absentee ballot” were located, McDonald said.

“We are unable to say why it appeared from the Secretary of State’s records that a by-mail absentee ballot was requested but we can confirm that no documents were located indicating that Mr. Greene ever requested a by-mail absentee ballot, nor that he turned one in when he voted with an in-person absentee ballot,” McDonald concluded.

Following the update from Floyd County regarding Perry Greene’s voting experience, Robert Sinners, a spokesman for the Secretary of State office, declined to comment, only stating: “We can’t really speak for a Floyd County specific issue or what was entered into ENet by the county elections clerk who helped Mr. Greene at the polls.”

Walter Jones, a former communications manager in the Secretary of State’s office, said earlier this year there were four complaints from Floyd County voters about absentee ballots in the 2020 election, but no violations – such as persons voting twice, by mail and in person – were found.

When CNHI reached out to Greene’s spokesperson following her earlier comments indicating that someone had voted absentee under her husband’s name, the spokesman responded that she was “misunderstood.”

Georgians voted in record numbers by mail, early in-person and at the polls in the 2020 general election. Joe Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump by 11,779 votes of 4,935,487 cast, becoming the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to win the state’s presidential election.