by Ty Tagami | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A hand count of ballots in a primary election race for the Georgia Public Service Commission found a discrepancy, but Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger determined it was not a problem.
The audit of results in all 159 counties for the District 2 Republican contest found one batch of 328 audited ballots had a discrepancy, but it was within an expected margin of error for a hand count, Raffensperger said Monday.
There was no deviation from candidate vote totals, he said.
“County election offices are in great hands,” he said. “Georgia’s system works. This is exactly why I’m leading the push to see our reforms instituted on a national level. This audit shows that our Georgia leads the nation in free, fair, and fast election results.”
Incumbent Republican Commissioner Tim Echols won the June 17 primary with 75.76% of the vote, easily dispatching challenger Lee Muns of Columbia County. Echols, who lives near Hoschton in the Athens area, will take on Democrat Alicia Johnson of Savannah in November.
Raffensperger, who attributed the discrepancy to human error, said the audit was supported by Voting Works and their Arlo auditing software.
Confidence in election integrity continues to be an issue among Republicans. At the state GOP convention in early June, a faction expressed discontent with party leaders when they announced that voting for party positions would be conducted with electronic “clickers” rather than the paper ballots that some wanted.
Some of the nearly 1,700 assembled delegates booed and yelled from the floor that the clickers were not working during practice votes before the real internal elections. Norine Cantor, who lost her bid for a party position, alleged that the convention was “rigged.”
