As Georgia's Hand Recount Concludes, Vote Count Shows Biden Still Ahead

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NPR

By STEPHEN FOWLER

Georgia election officials expect to release the results of a statewide audit by noon Thursday, as a handful of counties finish data entry from a full hand recount of 5 million presidential votes.

Gabriel Sterling with the secretary of state's office said Wednesday afternoon that at least 21 of 159 counties show their risk-limiting audit is still in process, including some of the large jurisdictions in metro Atlanta. The deadline for the audit is 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

"We cannot do the full quality-control process until all the data entry is in there," he said. "We will likely be having to use every minute of that midnight deadline."

Announcing the hand audit last week, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the recount was necessary because of the close margin of the race.



Fourteen auditors began the manual recount of around 71,000 presidential ballots in Macon, Ga., on Friday, part of a statewide recount of about 5 million votes cast across Georgia.
Grant Blankenship/GPB


Read more: https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936395421/as-georgias-hand-recount-concludes-vote-count-shows-biden-still-ahead

[klook]

1. Georgia vote discrepancies reconciled on last day of recount

- AJC: https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-vote-discrepancies-reconciled-on-last-day-of-recount/NB7BD5L5F5F4NI43H2YSS6LMLA/

Election officials corrected vote counting mistakes and explained an allegation by the Republican Party about miscounted DeKalb County ballots on Wednesday, the final day of Georgia’s manual recount.

The latest unofficial count puts Joe Biden 12,781 votes ahead of President Donald Trump, who gained about 1,400 votes this week that county election officials initially failed to count.

There’s no indication of broader problems beyond three counties that didn’t load all votes from memory cards and one county that didn’t rescan all ballots after an optical scanner was replaced because of a technical issue, said Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system manager.

Three of the four counties that had issues are Republican-leaning politically.

Recount to be completed by 11:59 p.m. ET today. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger must certify the state's election results by the end of the day on Friday, per Georgia law.

More at link above.

[LiberalLovinLug]

2. This is a bit confusing

"The latest unofficial count puts Joe Biden 12,781 votes ahead of President Donald Trump, who gained about 1,400 votes this week that county election officials initially failed to count."

The way the grammar is arranged, its hard to tell if they mean Biden gained the votes or Trump did. But it sounds more likely they mean Trump. If that's the case, how did that happen? Did Biden not lose or win any more votes himself? Only Trump gained any new votes?

If they mean that Trump is, as of now, up 1,400 by calculating the difference in all votes gained or loss on both sides, fine. But then say that.

And if that's the case, it would be nice to see a better break down. ie...Did Biden lose 200, and Trump gain 1200, or maybe Biden gained 200, but Trump gained 1600. It would be interesting to know how it broke down.

[Ms. Toad]

8. The memory cards that were inadvertently not included in the original

contained votes in roughly the same percentage as the rest of the county.

1400 is the net gain out of 2 counties (that I'm aware of). Virtual all of it is added votes (for both candidates) because the votes on those two cards were originally left out of the totals. They are still squabbling about why it happened, last I checked.

[ucrdem]

3. Thank you Georgia

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Ain't going so well for Trumpy

[oldsoftie]

5. Trumpers down here are screaming for the heads of Kemp, rafensburger, etc.

I mean they're losing their shit over this. And Kemp even said "legally, I have no way to influence anything regarding the recount". Off with his head!!

Most of our counties have finished the recounts. ANY discrepancy of more than ONE vote, and the count is done again. I think thats pretty damn secure.

[Blasphemer]

6. That's great news. Maybe they won't turnout on Jan 5th... nt

[oldsoftie]

7. They dont even see how this is depressing their own turnout. nt