Last week, a video was released from Georgia purporting to show partisan observers being told to leave the room, after which the remaining workers took out containers of votes and began to scan them. Gov. Kemp took it seriously enough to call for a signature audit in response. In what was a less than shocking development, those involved then decided to investigate themselves and have assured us that nothing untoward happened. That was enough for the media to start shouting from the roof-tops that the video had been “debunked.”

Conservative commentator and Fox News personality Mollie Hemingway isn’t buying it. RedState’s Nick Arama had reported on these same revelations prior to the piece at The Federalist, as well.

The Georgia Vote-Counting Video Was Not 'Debunked.' Not Even Close https://t.co/4Z6XxGH3kR

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 7, 2020

A Big Tech-backed “fact” “checking” outfit claimed to debunk explosive evidence in support of Republicans’ claims of significant election problems at a Thursday Georgia Senate hearing. It didn’t. Not even close.

Newly discovered security footage from Georgia’s State Farm Arena showed dozens of ballot counters, media, and Republican observers leaving en masse at the same time from the ballot-counting area for Fulton County. After they left, a small remnant of about four workers began pulling trunks containing thousands of ballots from underneath a table with a long tablecloth and running them through machines.

As Mollie goes on to point out, the “fact-checks” that claimed to have “debunked” the story relied on comments from government officials. That’s not a fact-check. It’s getting a comment and regurgitating it uncritically with no eye toward pressing for the truth. That some conservative commentators then ran with that is disappointing, though not unexpected.

Mollie notes that there are three different people (two under sworn affidavit), including the Georgia Republican Party Chairman, saying that the observers were, in fact, asked to leave. That’s exactly what appears to happen on the video as well. Why would the observers leave on their own? And if they mistakenly believed counting was done, why didn’t the election officials present correct them?

Then there’s this.

OK, so on the one hand you have sworn affidavits from observers saying that supervisors told ballot counters to go home for the evening shortly after 10 p.m. and a video showing everyone leaving en masse at that time. And on the other hand, you have two government officials promising that no one was told that counting was over. Is there any other evidence to consider?

Well, on election night, ABC News reported that ballot counters were sent home at the time that the Republican observers said everyone was told counting had stopped. Their source? Regina Waller…

If you were watching the election results that night, you almost certainly remember the reports coming out of Atlanta that counting had been stopped and that they’d resume in the morning. Those were a chief cause of suspicion in the first place. How did the media know that if it wasn’t announced? Other local journalists, per Mollie’s article, also confirmed they had heard the same thing about counting being stopped. The reality is that the video supports the idea that the observers were led to believe the night was done and that things would resume the next day.

Lastly, note that the claim that there was a State Election Board monitor present, something the “fact-check” used as proof nothing untoward happened, is also mostly false. One was there, but only for a few minutes, long after most of the counting was done.

The fact is, these ballots were counted late at night, after partisan observers had possibly been asked to leave. They were also counted after Fulton County had supposedly said counting was being stopped. Whether any of this was fraud or not should be fully investigated. Some fact-checking website and the word of some government officials who have everything to lose is not an investigation.

Mollie ends by noting that ‘Lead Stories’ (the fact-checker involved) is funded by all the usual big-tech actors, including those with ties to China. It’s no surprise they would rush out a badly done piece in an attempt to quash this video before it could even be truly gone over. The Georgia Secretary of State should stop whining about threats and go do his job for once. This needs real answers. Hand-waving it away in hurried fashion is not an investigation, and it’s not going to convince anyone.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)