Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced July 9 that results from an audit of the June 16 runoff showed errors came exclusively from hand-marked ballots.
The results came from a ballot image audit that Raffensperger said “demonstrated the inherent risk in relying on hand-marked ballots for secure elections.”
“Human beings make human errors,” Raffensperger said in a statement, “and the likelihood of a discrepancy between voter intent and what’s marked on a ballot is greatest when that ballot has been marked by hand.”
According to a press release, all 1,111,856 ballot images were audited, and 23 discrepancies were detected, demonstrating an overall accuracy rate of 99.9979%.
Detailed analysis of the data shows that the 23 discrepancies all occurred in ballots that hand been marked by hand, while none of the 1,079,408 ballots utilizing a ballot-marking device showed discrepancies.
The machine-marked ballots were 100% accurate, while the hand-marked ballots were 99.93% accurate, Raffensperger said in the release.
That same error rate, applied during a Presidential election year with an expected 5 million ballots cast, would create some 3,500 discrepancies, the release noted.
Full audit results can be found here.
The errors found on the hand-marked ballots follow legislation to keep QR codes on ballots until 2028, approved during the Georgia General Assembly’s special session and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Delaying the removal of QR codes gives the state time to institute a new voting system, with Republicans pushing for hand-marked ballots. President Donald Trump, who continues to claim without any proof that he won the 2020 election in Georgia, is pushing for a nationwide return to “paper ballots.”
RELATED STORIES
• Judge quashes subpoena seeking personal info of Georgia election workers
• Georgia election board adopts new rules targeting election mistrust
• FBI redirects hundreds of analysts to examine Fulton County’s 2020 election records
