Georgia Board of Elections reprimands Fulton County for scanning error in 2020 recount

Election investigators said they were unable to confirm that the double-scanned ballots were actually counted twice in the recount, which was the official result of the election. In the recount, Trump received a net 939 votes against Biden in Fulton County, where Biden received 73% support, according to the results.

Credit: [email protected]

Credit: [email protected]

The Houston County voter who filed the complaint, Joe Rossi, said the investigation showed the 2020 election was marred by irregularities, both in the recount and the manual audit of the 5 million votes cast. Last year, the State Board of Elections found that thousands of votes were double-counted or misassigned during an audit in Fulton.

“It has now been factually proven that the manual audit, which is really very important, and the certified machine count, have both been found to be in violation of Georgia election law,” Rossi told the board. “I will end with one word: justified.”

But state election officials said the election was accurate and all votes were counted.

“As long as we have the paper ballot, we have a paper trail that accurately captures the voter’s choice,” said Charlene McGowan, general counsel for the secretary of state’s office. “Fulton County used improper procedures during the recount of the 2020 presidential election. The investigation shows that there are images of duplicate ballots in the ballot images provided by Fulton County. Fulton, but what cannot be conclusively confirmed is whether those ballots were included in the count. »

The investigation is the latest example of mistakes Fulton made in recent elections, which the county said it has corrected.

The State Election Board reprimanded Fulton in February for initially failing to count 1,326 votes that were not loaded from memory cards in the 2022 primary. The county election board corrected the error and recertified the election in June 2022.

The board voted against a state takeover of Fulton’s election operations last year, concluding that the county had made improvements to election operations during a two-year performance evaluation.

“Fulton County’s performance in the 2020 election was closely scrutinized, but the results, confirmed by three different counts, have not changed. There is also no evidence of fraud or malfeasance,” county spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt said. “Since the 2020 election, Fulton County has hired a new manager, implemented numerous procedural updates, and invested in a new election headquarters. It has held six elections and independent observers have noted improvements.

The board voted to dismiss several other complaints against Fulton, including allegations that the county improperly added 16,000 votes to its tally before certifying the election and that the county could not provide footage digital for nearly 18,000 ballots.

An election investigator said loaded votes in the county are counted correctly and the lack of photos of the ballots does not mean the count is inaccurate. After the 2020 election, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law making ballot images public that must be preserved.

Credit: [email protected]

Credit: [email protected]

Janice Johnston, a member of the State Board of Elections, said she was not convinced by investigators’ explanations and voted against the reprimand motion.

“Either the votes should be invalidated or the paper ballots should be investigated for authenticity,” Johnston said. “There is no way this election or recount should have been certified.”

Board member Ed Lindsey said the matter should be resolved through greater accountability in this year’s elections, and Fulton indicated he would agree to install an election observer.

If Fulton does not hire an observer for this year’s general election, as the board has requested, Lindsey threatened to reopen the investigation at its next meeting in July.

“There is clear evidence that in 2020 there were numerous violations of regulations and statutes, and the county acknowledged that,” Lindsey said. “My goal here is not to let things go, but to move this forward so that we can have guarantees before the 2024 elections.