The Georgia secretary of state’s office announced Monday that Floyd County had discovered about 2,600 uncounted ballots during the state’s manual recount of votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.
Georgia voting system manager Gabriel Sterling said the 2,600 ballots, which originated from a box of early votes and accounted for about half of the box, had not been uploaded on election night. Sterling described it as an “amazing blunder” and said the secretary of state’s office is still investigating the issue.
Floyd County is the only county in the battleground state so far to have encountered a significant counting error. Sterling emphasized that it had stemmed not from an equipment or software problem but rather from an individual not properly executing his or her job.
“They just didn’t scan these ballots, or the card was not put through properly,” Sterling said. “Obviously the secretary and our whole office is perturbed, to say the least, that this was allowed to happen in that county.” He described it as “too important of an issue to have allowed to happen this way” and said that, as such, the secretary of state would seek the resignation of Floyd County’s election director.
Georgia initiated a full hand recount of its ballots on Friday after unofficial election results in the Peach State found former Vice President Joe Biden narrowly ahead of President Donald Trump by 14,155 votes out of close to five million. The newfound ballots netted about 800 votes in Trump’s favor, further tightening the margin between the candidates.
The secretary of state’s office is requiring counties complete their recounts by Wednesday, November 18, and the office intends to certify the election results by Friday, November 20.
Write to Ashley Oliver at [email protected].
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