North Georgia elections director asked to step down after audit reveals 2,600 uncounted votes
Georgia’s Secretary of State office is calling for the Floyd County elections director to resign after roughly 2,600 uncounted presidential ballots were found during its local recount.
President Donald Trump gained a net total of 800 votes, cutting President-elect Joe Biden’s lead in the state to a little over 13,000. The votes came from an early voting box, and the uncounted ballots were the result of human error, WSB-TV reports.
The Secretary of State’s office has been unable to reach Floyd’s election director Robert Brady. He is in COVID-19 quarantine, said Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system implementation manager.
“We’re left with no choice on this one,” he said. “We’re not getting the answers. We have an investigator down there. It looks like it was a management issue. They didn’t upload a card or there was an issue on that side. It’s unfortunate, but I think there’s no other possible outcome at this point.”
The uncounted ballots in Floyd County is the most significant issue found so far during the state’s risk-limiting audit process. Sterling said he doesn’t expect any massive changes as county election officials count each presidential vote by hand.
“We know the system we have works,” he said. “This just goes to give more evidence that it does work.”
County election officials have until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to finish their audit, and the state has until Nov. 20 to certify its election results.
This story was originally published November 16, 2020 at 6:45 PM with the headline "North Georgia elections director asked to step down after audit reveals 2,600 uncounted votes."