Georgia Counties Kick Off Formal Recount Of Presidential Race
Cobb County began testing its scanners Tuesday morning, the first step in the recount process.
Emil Moffatt / WABE
Having just completed a statewide audit involving a hand tally of all 4.9 million ballots, Georgia counties are now facing a complete machine recount.
The re-scanning is part of a recount requested by the Trump campaign because of the closeness of the presidential race in Georgia. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by about 12,600 votes. That count was confirmed by the audit.
On Tuesday morning, Cobb County began the recount process by selecting a test deck of 100 ballots. They then fed those ballots through the county’s eight scanners to test for accuracy.
The county is expected to start scanning all of its 396,000 ballots once the test results are uploaded to the state, says elections director Janine Eveler.
“Each scanner will have a team of people that are keeping track of the batches that are done and not done and making their records of the batch numbers and keeping track,” said Eveler. “And then you’ll have your scanner person. It’s a lot fewer people than the hand count.”
Eveler says workers will scan on Tuesday and Wednesday before breaking for the Thanksgiving holiday. They will be back Monday for the final three days of work before the Wednesday night deadline set by the state.
“It is time consuming, especially after just completing the hand audit. But, it’s part of the process, so we have to follow through with all of that,” said Eveler. “We do have a short time frame [to also get ready] for the [Jan. 5] runoff, so we do have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Gabriel Sterling, with the secretary of state’s office, estimates about 50 ballots per minute could go through the machine, although he doesn’t want counties to rush.
“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” said Sterling. “You don’t want to rush yourself in areas that you have to go back and fix.”
Monitors from both parties are allowed to observe the recount process up close.
Gwinnett County also started its recount Tuesday morning. Fulton County is set to start logic and accuracy testing on Tuesday afternoon, with scanning set to begin Wednesday morning. DeKalb County is expected to start its recount on Wednesday as well. Clayton County is set to begin Tuesday at 2 p.m.
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