Bombshell texts cast doubt on ‘highly exaggerated’ burst pipe excuse for pause in Georgia vote count as Trump cries foul
BOMBSHELL text messages have cast doubt on claims that a "burst pipe" disrupted vote counting in Georgia.
It has been claimed by Donald Trump that the ruptured pipe "in a far away location" caused a "four hour" delay on election night.
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State officials on November 3 did confirm that a pipe had leaked at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena where votes were being counted.
And while Trump's claim that the faulty plumbing happened in another location is false, more evidence has emerged suggesting the story was "highly exaggerated."
Released under freedom-of-information laws, a text message exchange involving a senior stadium staffer calls the issue "a slow leak that caused about an hour and a half delay”.
The official calls the claim of a four-hour delay “highly exaggerated" adding: "We contained it quickly – it did not spread."
Georgia lawyer Paul Dzikowski, who obtained the messages, says there is not one picture of the damaged pipe.
He told news.com.au: "Beyond the lack of documentary evidence of the inspection or repair of a ruptured pipe, we are being asked to believe that there is not one single picture of this allegedly ruptured pipe, at a time and in a place where virtually everything is recorded and documented."
President Trump mentioned the leak in his "election fraud" speech on Friday.
He said: "In Georgia, a pipe burst in a far away location, totally unrelated to the location of what was happening and they stopped counting for four hours."
However, on November 3, at least two state officials confirmed the incident to news outlets.
County spokesperson Regina Waller told CNN that absentee vote processing in Fulton County had been delayed due to the faulty pipe.
According to Waller, a pipe "burst" happened above the room where all absentee ballots were being processed in the arena.
She said no votes had been damaged but confirmed the "four hour" delay Trump referenced.
Also on election night, Fulton County sent Fox5 a statement confirming the leak.
However, in that report, officials said the repair was completed "within two hours".
They confirmed that as of 7pm on Wednesday 30,000 absentee ballots were not processed due to the incident.
The statement said the leak had affected the room where ballots were being counted.
It read: "The staff at State Farm Arena notified Fulton County Registration and Elections of a water leak affecting the room where absentee ballots were being tabulated."
But, officials insisted that none of the votes were damaged and that the leak was quickly cleaned up.
This comes as Trump's campaign has launched legal challenges in several battleground states alleging voter fraud.
In Georgia, a key swing state where Joe Biden defeated Trump by 0.3 percentage points, a full recount and audit of the vote has been ordered.
The battleground state, which has 16 electoral college votes, must certify its results by November 20.
Election officials across the country have said they've seen no evidence of voter fraud.
Many of the claims, shared by Reuters, allege that poll watchers could not get as close as they wanted to observe – but other claims are far more questionable.
An election worker in Georgia has been forced into hiding over a fake claim that he threw away a ballot in a misleading video.
Fulton Election Director Rick Barron insisted on Friday evening the denounced election worker from State Farm Arena has been falsely accused.
The poll worker has been condemned on social media after footage of a man appearing to crumble an absentee ballot went viral.
According to Barron, the backlash over the video has prompted the poll worker to "leave his house and go stay with friends," reports WTHR.
He denied that the man had tampered with ballots, saying: "It's been questioned if the employee in the video was discarding one of those ballots.
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"The answer is no - undeniably, no. At no time was the poll worker able to extract the ballot."
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He added: “However one thing that you need to know is that those ballots are 8-in-a-half by 19 inches long.
“At no time did you see him extract anything from the envelope and that crumbled piece of paper - they were instructions and it was a smaller piece of paper.”