Old voting equipment found on the side of the road in Garden City

GARDEN CITY, Ga. (WTOC) - An unusual find Thursday in Garden City off Dean Forest Road.

A man outside the Blueberry Hill Bar and Grill discovered what appears to be some type of voting equipment. It was found off the road in a grassy area.

WTOC has contacted the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. They are looking into the situation. They say it appears to be older voting equipment - not equipment used this year during the elections.

The communications department said that all of Georgia’s old voting equipment was collected before the new equipment was distributed to counties. That old equipment is in storage.

The Secretary of State’s Office did say that some of the old voting equipment is being stored in secured warehouse space at the Georgia Ports in Chatham County.

The man who discovered the equipment describes how he spotted it.

“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 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,” Jeff Davis, who found the equipment, said.

The Garden City Police Department contacted the Georgia Bureau of Investigations in reference to the discarded voting machine.

According to the GBI, agents secured the machine, photographed it, and sent pictures of the machine to the Secretary of State’s Office.

The Secretary of State’s Office is investigating the discovery of the equipment.

The following is a statement from the Secretary of State’s Office:

“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. 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.”

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