Georgia Recount Shows 2,600 Uncounted Ballots

The Georgia recount of presidential votes showed 2,600 uncounted ballots in Floyd County. Upon counting, they showed 1,643 new votes for Republican Donald Trump and 865 for Democrat Joe Biden.

RELATED: Georgia Begins Hand Recount; Expected to Be Completed By Wednesday

Georgia Elections Director Chris Harvey verified the 2,600 missed ballots. They will add these ballots to the final tally by Friday’s recount deadline. “You want every vote counted right the first time, but that is one of the goals of the audit: to identify problems,” he said. “All the votes will be uploaded, and the results will be what they are.”

Reducing Biden’s Lead

Trump currently leads Biden in Floyd County by a 43% margin in the recount, which ends this Friday. Once official, the ballots will add an estimated 800 votes to Trump, and reduce Biden's 14,000 vote lead in the state. 

The past week, President Trump decried alleged voter fraud in the state. However, the newly-counted ballots won’t do much. In fact, it won't change the outcome of the presidential race. With 99% of the votes counted, Biden leads Trump in Georgia 49.5% to 49.2%.

Crucial Senate Runoff

The recovered votes can possibly help Republican Senator David Perdue. Perdue is short of 14,000 to claim 50% of the total vote. If he gets the number, he will avoid a runoff with Democratic candidate Jon Ossof. If not, then Perdue and Ossof face a January 5 runoff election to determine the winner. 

Since then, Perdue threw himself behind Present Donald Trump's claims of election fraud. He joined fellow Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in calling for accountability. Together they asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign. Raffensperger, a Republican, refused to do so. At the same time, Perdue recognized President-elect Joe Biden's victory. He warned that the two Georgia Senate seats for runoff are crucial for the GOP’s hold of the senate. These are “the last line of defense against this liberal socialist agenda the Democrats will perpetuate.”

What Happened to the Ballots?

Raffensperger’s office said the lost votes were due to human error. Election workers failed to upload a memory card to a ballot counting machine. Floyd County Republican Party Chairman Luke Martin said “It’s very concerning.” He added: “But this doesn’t appear to be a widespread issue. I’m glad the audit revealed it, and it’s important that all votes are counted.” 

Gabriel Sterling, the state‘s voting system manager, said the incident was “an amazing blunder.” In addition, he emphasized the error as “not an equipment issue. It’s a person not executing their job properly.” Sterling then suggested the Floyd County elections director Chief Clerk Robert Brady resign. “This is the kind of situation that requires a change at the top of their management side,” Sterling noted.

Senator Graham’s Suggestion

On Monday, Raffensperger said Senator Lindsey Graham hinted that he throw away ballots. Speaking on CNN’s The Situation Room, Raffensperger recounted his talk with Graham. He said that Graham “asked if the ballots could be matched back to the voters.” “It implied that then you could throw those out for any if you look at the counties with the highest frequent error of signatures. So that's the impression that I got,” he said. He thought Graham meant it as “an implication of, ‘Look hard, and see how many ballots you could throw out,'” he added. 

Raffensperger told The Washington Post that Graham cast doubts on Georgia's signature-matching law. He thought that biased poll workers might “count ballots with inconsistent signatures.”

‘Ridiculous’

Senator Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, denied the allegations. He told CNN that he only wanted to understand how to verify signatures on mail-in ballots. He called the allegations made by Raffensperger as “ridiculous.” 

Graham said: “It seems to me that Georgia has some protections that maybe other states don't have.” He even said he thought it was a good conversation, and that “I'm surprised to hear him verify it that way.” He added: “So they expanded mail-in voting, and how you verify the signatures to me is the big issue. If you're going to have mail-in voting, you've got to verify that the person who signed the envelope is also the person who requested the ballot.”

Watch this 11Alive reports that Georgia's election audit uncovers 2,600 uncounted ballots in the presidential race:

How do you find Georgia’s recount? Was it an exercise in futility, as the outcome wouldn’t change anything? Or was it an audit that affirmed that the system works most of the time? Let us know what you think by sharing your comments below.