ATLANTA — A hand recount of the presidential race in Georgia’s closely watched election audit has turned up 2,600 previously uncounted votes in one county.
“The reason you do an audit is to find this kind of thing,” Gabriel Sterling, who oversaw the implementation of the new election system for the secretary of state’s office, said Monday night.
President Trump could see a gain of about 800 net votes from the newly discovered ballots in Floyd County.
The error occurred because county election officials failed to upload votes from a memory card in a ballot scanning machine, Sterling said, adding that he believed Floyd County’s elections director should resign.
“It’s not an equipment issue,” Sterling said. “It’s a person not executing their job properly. This is the kind of situation that requires a change at the top of their management side.”
Luke Martin, chairman of the Floyd County Republican Party, called the error “very concerning” but added that he didn’t think it was “a widespread issue.”
“I’m glad the audit revealed it, and it’s important that all votes are counted,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Nearly 5 million votes were cast in Georgia’s presidential race.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden led Trump in Georgia by about 14,000 votes before the recount.
The Floyd County election board chairman said he didn’t have an immediate breakdown of the newly discovered ballots, but unofficial results previously showed Trump with 70% of the county’s votes to 28.4% for Biden.
The uncounted votes in Floyd County represent the most significant error that has been found during Georgia’s massive recount.
More than 100 counties have until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to complete their recount. The results will be finalized on Friday.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said that the other counties’ recounted figures largely match their original numbers.
Raffensperger has been under attack by Trump and other high-profile Republicans who have repeatedly taken shots at Georgia’s ability to provide fair and accurate vote tallies.
The Republican became the target of his own party after he said that there had been no widespread voter fraud in Georgia’s presidential election.
The state’s two incumbent GOP senators, who are in twin high-stakes runoffs in January that will determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate, called for Raffensperger’s resignation and condemned the presidential election as an “embarrassment.”
Raffensperger told the Washington Post on Monday he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats, including a text that read, “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”
