Bibb, Houston counties complete recount as state on track to beat Wednesday deadline

Georgia’s 159 counties had until midnight tonight to complete a recount, by hand, of ballots cast in the presidential election.

While final results will be announced Thursday or Friday, a majority of counties have reported no or slight vote differences. Election officials also said an audit of the state’s voting machines found no evidence of tampering. Several counties have reported hundreds or thousands of votes that weren’t counted or loaded properly, but no significant discrepancies have been reported in Middle Georgia.

President-elect Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by fewer than 13,000 votes.

Macon it by the deadline

Bibb County election workers were done counting their ballots well before the deadline, and the results of the recount only changed the vote by around 20 ballots, said Mike Kaplan, chair of the Bibb Board of Elections.

The state has until Friday to certify the election, but Kaplan said he believes the Secretary of State’s office will release the numbers of the recount Thursday and explain any discrepancies.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of Jeanetta Watson and the entire staff of the Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections and the poll workers of the board of elections. They’ve been through this entire process, and we’re still not done because we have a runoff. They worked entirely through the pandemic without stopping in March, April, May and June, who have spent countless hours making sure this election was done right,” Kaplan said.

Although Kaplan said they had some disagreements with people concerning observing the recount, he said they had to limit the amount of poll watchers due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

If he could have had one or two poll watchers behind each person counting ballots, he said that would’ve been great, but they couldn’t have that many people in the building with social distancing guidelines in place.

“We did the best we could under the trying times we have,” he said.

Kaplan said he hopes the recount turns out very close to the initial election results for the sake of democracy.

“We have to have faith in our voting system, and if we don’t have faith in our voting system, you have anarchy and disbelief,” he said. “If we lose faith in the system, then those people that are trying to interfere in our elections have accomplished their mission of causing doubt in what we’re doing. We can’t have doubt. We’ve got to be sure. That’s why I think that this hand count is important that it turns out pretty close to where the computer count was.”

“Very, very close to the original”

The by-hand audit of the presidential race in Houston County found only a slight difference, said Andy Holland, a registration election assistant for the Houston County Board of Elections.

“I think it went rather smoothly,” Holland said. “The results of the hand count were very, very close to the original reported count.

“So we’ll wait and see after all the counties finish and the state certifies, whether or not we have to do a machine recount,” he said.

With Biden expected to keep his lead as the president-elect in Georgia, Trump may call for a machine recount if the margin of victory is less than 0.5% in the state.

A slight difference

On election night, Houston County recorded 41,534 votes for Trump and 32,232 for Biden, according to Holland. In all, 75,166 ballots were cast.

In the by-hand audit, Houston County recorded 41,520 votes for Trump and 32,262 for Biden. In all, 75,179 ballots were counted - 13 more than on election night.

Holland said he’s really not sure why there was a difference.

“The change in the results could be a result of the voter review panel decisions on ballots … It could have been human error but they counted and counted again. They double-checked their work, not that they counted a ballot twice.”

“But the difference and the change is less than .02% from what I figured,” he said.

Holland expects election night results to be used to certify the vote.

“My understanding is that unless there is a major change, the original totals will be used to certify” the election results, Holland said.

Houston County finished the by-hand audit on Sunday, he said.