Georgia Officials Investigating After Old Voting Machines Found Dumped Near Savannah

Gwinnett County election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election at the Beauty P. Baldwin Voter Registrations and Elections Building in Lawrenceville, Ga., on Nov. 16, 2020. Megan Varner/Getty Images

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office on Friday said it is investigating why several “no-longer-used” voting machines were dumped near Savannah.

“The Secretary of State’s Office is looking into the circumstances of the discovering alongside a highway of a no-longer-used voting machine that appears to be part of a shipment of defunct equipment heading to storage at the Port of Savannah,” the agency said in a statement. “Machines of this type are no longer used in Georgia. There is no way it could have impacted the 2020 election because it does not print ballots, and this state has switched entirely to voting on paper ballots.”

The statement came after a person on social media posted photos of the purported voting machine in a grassy area.

It’s unclear how the machine ended up on the side of the road.

Jeff Davis told WTOC-11 that he found the equipment.

“I was on a phone call out here and looked over. What I thought was a solar panel was actually a briefcase with a voting machine. The local police was [sic] here and asked how we found and what I saw. Then from there, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations arrived, and they asked the same type of questions,” Davis told the station. He said he found it near Garden City off Dean Forest Road.

According to the outlet, the Garden City Police Department contacted the Georgia Bureau of Investigations about the discarded machines.

It comes after President Donald Trump and his legal team called into question the result of the election in Georgia and other key states. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger on Friday said his office certified the election despite disputes from Trump’s team.