Atlanta (AP) – Georgia says it will call – as many as the nine million ballots cast in its closest presidential election in November, but is this a count? An “audit”? And why are they doing it?
All of this is a bit confusing, but election experts say what has happened in Georgia is unlikely to change the outcome and are warning that there is likely to be a discrepancy in the final vote count. That doesn’t mean something bad happened. Experts say that while using a completely different method – a hand-to-hand machine – a second count is expected.
While President Donald Trump is making unequivocal claims of fraud by challenging the election result, Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Rafansperg, has defended the work of state election officials, saying the review is unlikely to change the result. In the unofficial results, Democrats are leading Biden Trump by nearly 14,000 votes.
Here’s more:
Is this a RE physical account?
No. State election officials have said this is not a calculation, but a post-election audit date.
The main difference between the two is: a count is usually associated with a close period in an election, while post-election audits are regular and states ensure that all vote counting tools and procedures work properly.
In Georgia, for example, recalculations are carried out using the same scanners that read and lengthen previously unofficial results. And in Georgia the calculations usually take place after the election results have been certified by the state. It hasn’t happened yet. Once the election certificate is issued, the next final candidate may request a recount if the margin is less than 0.5 per cent. Biden is currently 0.28 percentage points ahead, so Trump may still request a recount later.
So what does Georgia do, then?
The post-election audit is being conducted under the new state law, which will be conducted for the first time this year in the race for secretary of state selection. Raffensperger said he “chose the race for the presidency because of the national significance of the race and the proximity of the race.”
The specific type of audit debt Georgia chooses is known as the “risk-limit”. It involves checking the paper ballet in front of the machine long to ensure the accuracy of those machines. This was the first time this year that Georgia used a fleet of ballot-marking, voting machines that produce a record of each ballot paper individually.
Risk-limited its dits usually begin with an early ballet sample. It increases depending on the level of discrepancy observed in the sample. This type of audit ends when either election officials reach a certain level of confidence that the result is correct or that a full calculation has been made. It is not intended to bring results that are exactly the same as the previous telly.
But Georgia election officials say they will review every ballot to begin with. He says it will be easier for county officials to manage because a large number of ballots and close margins are likely to count each ballot anyway.
Was this prompted by fraudulent attachments?
No. Rafansperger has repeatedly said that no evidence of widespread fraud was found in his office with the November 3 election. A senior official said Thursday that Ditt’s point was that “the equipment ballot was properly scanned and the calculation we received is a correct calculation.”
However, it is difficult to ignore the stakes around the decision.
Before the decision to conduct the audit dit was announced, Trump allies in the state sent a letter to a fellow Republican named Repensperger, requesting that he order a hand count before certifying the results. State election officials said the decision to audit the letter was discussed before.
In addition, as Fencesperger faces calls for the resignation of two U.S. senators from Georgia, both Trump supporters are facing close runoff elections that could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate next year.
When does this begin, and how do we know?
Counties must begin the process after 9 a.m. Friday, one week before the state deadline to certify the election.
The state is asking the counties for a handout by 11:59 p.m., Wednesday, a tight time. Representatives from each party will be allowed to watch the process, although they will not be allowed to challenge any ballots.
State election officials said they would not release the interim long-term and would announce the results once the number of hands was completed.
Can the vote tally change?
Yes. Both election experts and the Georgia secretary of state office said the length of the final vote would be almost certain to be different than previously reported unofficial results. “The outcome will change a little bit in the end, more than likely,” says Gabriel Sterling, with the secretary’s fee.
According to Larry Norden, an election expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, hand counts are generally less reliable than machine calculations. “Men make mistakes,” Norden says, adding that the gap between Biden and Trump doesn’t mean the overall outcome changes. “It’s very unlikely you’ll find enough discrepancies to handle the 14,000 votes, and that’s just as important at the end of the day.”
State election officials have said the results of the handshake will eventually be used to certify the election.
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Christina a. Cassidy covers voting and election security for the Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Christina
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