An audit in Georgia turned up more than 3,000 uncounted ballots in two different counties during the 2020 presidential election.
As the hand-tallying continues, officials in Fayette County found 2,755 ballots which had not been included in the original count.
“There was an issue where we noticed there were more people on the absentee ballot filed for voting in person in Fayette County than was in the actual reporting. It was discovered today for certain. Because of the audit, we found this,” Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling said.
Sterling said that the problem was the result of several individuals not following the proper procedures.
In Walton County, another audit found 284 ballots. Lori Wood, the local Board of Elections chair said that the problem was due to votes being uploaded from only one of two ballot scanners in a precinct.
“We would have discovered it. Maybe not this week, but we would have discovered it,” Wood said.
The ballots found in Walton County raised President Trump‘s lead in the heavily Republican county by 176 votes.
These revelations follow the discovery of more than 2,600 ballots that had not been counted in Floyd County. At the time of the discovery, Floyd County Republican Party chair Luke Martin called the “concerning” but insisted that it “doesn’t appear to be a widespread issue.”
After the Fayette County discovery, Martin was singing a different tune, blaming a lack of sufficient observation of the ballot counting process as an explanation for the mistakes not being caught.
“If this was human error and the Board of Elections allowed the parties, allowed the public to view the counting of the ballots, we could have seen that. But we didn’t get the opportunity to be there,” Martin told Fox News’ “The Story” Tuesday.
Georgia is also conducting an investigation of Fulton County’s election management.
Unless more uncounted ballots are found during the election audit, it will not change the election result. Joe Biden was leading in the state by around 14,000 votes, though the updated count in Fayette County narrowed the lead to just under 13,000.
