CLAIM: An electronics recycling truck photographed in a parking lot outside the Gwinnett County Voter Registrations and Elections Office in Georgia was shredding computer hard drives in order to destroy evidence related to the Nov. 3 election.
THE FACTS: Photos that circulated widely on social media this week show a truck labeled “Premier Surplus, Inc Electronic Recycling” in a suburban Atlanta parking lot, with the county’s elections office behind it. Social media users shared the photos with claims the truck was a “hard-drive shredder” being used to destroy machines with evidence of election fraud. Neither is true.
Officials work on ballots at the Gwinnett County Voter Registration and Elections Headquarters, Friday, Nov. 6, 2020, in Lawrenceville, near Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
The truck was not equipped for shredding, but was instead “a traditional box truck” similar to a moving truck, according to Phillip Kennedy, vice president of Premier Surplus, Inc. The company was scheduled to pick up “traditional county surplus” items that needed to be recycled or resold, Kennedy told the AP in a phone interview. These did not include election equipment.
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When posts began spreading on social media falsely claiming the truck was destroying election materials, Kennedy contacted the county and canceled the pickup for the day, he said. The truck was onsite to pick up surplus equipment from the county's Information Technology Services department as part of a project to replace desktop computers with laptop computers, according to Joe Sorenson, communications director for Gwinnett County. “The project is unrelated to the election and the area being used does not have access to the elections facilities,” Sorenson told The Associated Press in an email.
Sorenson said county ITS crews were harassed and followed “by a group of citizen monitors” on Tuesday, prompting the county to release a statement on social media about the project. “This CARES Act-funded project has been underway since October and will enhance employees’ ability to telecommute during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement said. “The warehouse where new equipment is brought in to be prepared for deployment and old equipment is broken down to go to surplus or be returned to the manufacturer is located within the same building as the Gwinnett Voter Registrations and Elections Headquarters, the Beauty P. Baldwin Building. However, there is no access to elections activity from the warehouse.”
Kennedy said he had received dozens of inquiries and some death threats amid the false allegations. “Everyone’s super on edge right now,” Kennedy said. “Be vocal, but just don’t fly off the hinges. There’s always more to the picture.”
— Ali Swenson
