How an Election Conspiracy Theory Led Back to Georgia Cops

An election conspiracy that went viral on right-wing news sites and was promoted by former President Donald Trump has been debunked by security footage obtained exclusively by VICE News. 

In May 2021 in Fulton County, Georgia, an alarm was triggered in an election warehouse that stored ballots and voting machines from the 2020 presidential election. A photo taken of an open door at the warehouse was used by conspiracy theorists and right-wing media to claim that the 2020 election was, indeed, insecure. But through a series of interviews and Freedom of Information Act requests, VICE News found that it wasn’t election workers who opened that door—it was off-duty police officers. 

The warehouse had become a site of contention earlier that year, as lawyers and pro-Trump activitsts sued Fulton County multiple times to review the absentee ballots. As part of the fourth lawsuit brought against the county, a judge ordered that Fulton County Sheriff's department provide round-the-clock watch of the warehouse to ensure no one was tampering with ballots. 

That protection wasn’t enough for Bob Cheeley, one of the lawyers who filed suit against Fulton County. Cheeley decided to hire off-duty sheriff’s deputies from neighboring Douglas County to do their own surveillance of the warehouse. The deputies were hired through T&T Security, a private security company. They were tasked with sitting across the street from the warehouse and monitoring any potentially unusual activity. 

Election workers at the warehouse, already on high alert after being subject to months of violent threats from Trump supporters who believed the election was stolen, were uneasy about the off-duty sheriffs watching them exit and enter the building.

“You know, it was just a few months after the insurrection. People were very afraid of what could happen,” one worker, who asked to remain anonymous because of the harassment he has faced, told VICE News.

After the 2020 election, election workers reported being followed home in their cars by people who believed they were involved in election fraud, and some even replaced their license plates with new ones. Workers were even harassed at home by Trump supporters, and forced to relocate to temporary safe houses. Others had their children threatened. Still, to this day, there is no evidence of massive voter fraud or ballot tampering in the 2020 election. 

But on May 29, eight days after the police details were assigned by the judge, Fulton County deputies left their post at the elections warehouse without being relieved. While the warehouse remained unmanned by Fulton County officers for a little over an hour, the off-duty deputies working for Cheeley claimed they heard an alarm going off at the warehouse, which they investigated.

The off-duty police officers then took a photo of the warehouse that shows one of the doors left wide open, according to Cheeley in an email obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act request to the Fulton County Sheriff's Office. 

Emerald Robinson, a former White House Correspondent for far right news site Newsmax, tweeted a picture of the open door, and said “a secure building where ballots are kept” was “found left wide open and unattended.” Robinson said she obtained the photo from an attorney working on the Fulton County audit. 

An avalanche ensued: The Gateway Pundit, a website that’s being sued by two Fulton County election officials for instigating harassment and death threats, also picked up and shared the story. 

The photo quickly sparked weeks of conspiracy theories with right-wing outlets and conservative influencers; they claimed that this open door proved that any individual could enter the building and potentially tamper with the ballots. 

After making its rounds, the story reached the former president. 

On May 31, Trump released a statement using the same headline as the Gateway Pundit. “Great work is being done in Georgia revealing the Election Fraud of the 2020 Presidential Election,” the statement said. “But we must not allow ANYONE to compromise these ballots by leaving the building unsecured.” 

By July 2021, the story made its way to Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News. 

“On a Saturday night in late May of this year, an alarm sounded in a big nondescript warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia,” Carlson told his audience of millions. “By the time those deputies returned to check out the alarm, someone had opened the 100-pound door to the warehouse.”

But several people who work at the elections warehouse dispute that account.

“I guess the law enforcement across the street decided today we are going to come up to the warehouse and enter the warehouse, which they did,” one election worker who is familiar with the alarm system of the Fulton County warehouse told VICE News. “And once inside the warehouse, they triggered our alarm … they had to trespass and enter the building in order to trigger the alarm.“ 

And, importantly, the security footage from that day, obtained by VICE News through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that the off-duty sheriffs hired by Cheeley opened the warehouse door, entered the warehouse, and took the photo that started the conspiracy. 

In the security footage, recorded shortly after the Fulton County Sheriff’s deputies drove away, the off-duty deputy from Douglas County approached the Fulton County Elections warehouse and attempted to open several closed doors. 

Next, one of the officers found a closed but unlocked door. He opened it, and walked though.

In the footage, he is joined by the other off-duty officer and together they spend about five minutes in the warehouse. Before they leave, one of the officers takes a photo of the warehouse door—that he or his partner opened.

The tape does not contain audio, so it does not show if the officers were responding to the alarm, or the alarm was triggered for other reasons. A Fulton County Sheriff’s Office investigation of the incident is also inconclusive about what set off the alarm. 

In an email obtained by VICE News, however, Cheeley tells the judge overseeing the audit that the off-duty sheriffs took the photos that spread across social media. Cheeley also claims that the warehouse door “blew open.” 

“I am certain that there are those who would seize the opportunity to burn the evidence but for the security presence which I am funding,” he wrote in the email.  

VICE News went to the warehouse and saw the door in question. Despite what right-wing media outlets reported, there is another door that separates the ballots and voting machines from the lobby of the building, where the off-duty officers entered. Someone who walks through that door would not be able to access the ballots. (Again, multiple recounts have confirmed that President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Georgia by roughly 12,000 votes.) 

In October, the judge dismissed Cheeley’s lawsuit, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to provide enough evidence to establish a need for an audit. 

The impact from these conspiracy theories, however, can’t be understated. A poll from earlier this year showed that nearly half of Americans believe the election was stolen—in part because of hyperlocal conspiracy theories like the open door in Fulton County. 

And for those who were already skeptical of the election results, this story reinforced the belief that there was massive voter fraud in the 2020 election and prompted some to threaten actual violence. 

When VICE News called the individuals who had left death threats for election workers in Fulton County, some spoke about the open door. 

“We knew what they were doing. We heard the stories about back doors being crazily left open to secure facilities holding ballots,” said Tennessee resident John Johnson, who left a message for Fulton County workers in the months after the election. 

“Whenever something shady is happening,” he told VICE News, “it's usually hiding something.” Johnson was unrepentant about harassing Fulton County Election workers over the phone and reaffirmed his belief the election was stolen. 

But for election workers, the incident with the door has had even more of an impact. 

“I've been told ever since I was a little child to trust law enforcement. You know, they're here to protect and serve,” a supervisor at the elections warehouse told VICE News. “But you really can’t trust anybody who is across the street watching you … I have to keep my guard up at all times.”