Elections officials in Georgia attempted to set the record straight after GOP officials including President Donald Trump have taken to Twitter to cast doubt on Georgia’s elections process.
The latest round of accusations began with Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer tweeting that an election monitor discovered a 9,626 vote error in the DeKalb County hand recount. Shafer’s tweet was sent Wednesday morning, making it appear as though the error had just been uncovered.
State election official Gabriel Sterling said the issue was not a problem with votes, but with a tally sheet made during the recount that he says was caught over the weekend and would have been caught during the state’s quality control process had it not been caught sooner.
“The error was discovered. It was corrected. This was a non-event, non-issue,” Sterling said.
Sterling also said the error had no impact on the state’s vote count.
Shortly after Shafer’s tweet, Trump called Georgia’s recount a joke and said thousands of fraudulent votes had been found.
Sterling responded by saying Georgia’s recount was adhering to state law. “The main thing is we’re going to continue to follow the law and continue to follow the process,” Sterling said. He also pointed out irony in Trump’s recent complaints about the state. “It’s a little bit ironic because he has gained votes in the process.”
What is Sterling’s advice to voters trying to sort out the fact from the fiction among all of the accusations being lobbed? “Go to trusted sources like your county elections website or the secretary of state’s website,” he said.
Elections officials are also reporting another county that discovered missing votes on a memory card that had not been counted. This time, Douglas County officials found 128 uncounted votes. Once counted, the votes came back 156 votes for Joe Biden, 128 votes for Trump, seven for Jo Jorgensen and two ballots that did not have a presidential candidate chosen.
The newly counted votes bring the margin of votes between Biden and Trump to 12,781.
According to Sterling 4.9 million votes have been recounted so far and officials expect the recount to be completed by the state’s deadline of midnight.
