GOP-led county faces massive fees after letting election deniers access voting machines

The Pennsylvania county of Fulton may have to reimburse the state elections agency hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees after allowing activists to examine voting machines in the wake of Donald Trump's claims of fraud in the 2020 election.

Secretary of State Al Schmidt asked a “special master” last week to order the county's GOP-controlled government to repay the state $711,000 for outside counsel’s legal fees and related costs, KSTP-TV reported.

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The updated total came after Fulton officials “requested an evidentiary hearing regarding the appointment of a third-party escrow agent to take possession of the voting machines at issue — and then did everything in their power to delay and obstruct both the hearing itself and, more generally, the impoundment of the voting machines ordered by the Supreme Court," Schmidt's filing claimed.

From KSTP-TV: "The justices’ brief order issued Wednesday also turned down a request by Fulton County to put on hold a judge’s order selecting the independent safekeeper for the Dominion machines the county used during the election, won by President Joe Biden.

"The justices last year ordered that the Dominion-owned machines be placed in the custody of a “neutral agent” at the county’s expense, a transfer that [a lawyer for Fulton County officials Thomas Carroll] said in a recent filing occurred last month."

Read more at KSTP-TV.