Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Thursday evening that the hand recount of Georgia’s presidential ballots “upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome produced by the machine tally of votes cast.”
The original vote count was audited and recounted because president-elect Joe Biden had a narrow lead over Donald Trump. The recount was first announced on Nov. 11. Gabriel Sterling, who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, said the audit was complete on the evening of Thursday, Nov. 19.
In the states Floyd County, more than 2,500 ballots were discovered during the audit that hadn’t previously been counted and the secretary of state’s office had called for the firing of the county’s chief elections clerk, Robert Brady. Several other counties found memory cards with votes that hadn’t been uploaded and counted prior to the audit as well.
No individual county showed a variation in margin larger than 0.73 percent, and the variation in margin in 103 of the state’s 159 counties was less than 0.05 percent, Sterling said.
The final tally for the state of Georgia had President Elect Joe Biden in the lead with 2,475,141 votes (49.5 percent). President Donald Trump trailed close behind with 2,462,857 (49.3 percent).
