(ATLANTA) – After weeks of prodding by the governor and President Trump, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Monday called for signature match audits on the state’s absentee ballots.
The Secretary of State’s Office will partner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to audit ballots in Cobb County and with an accredited university for the statewide audit.
“Election integrity has been a top priority since day one of my administration,” says the embattled secretary of state who has been roundly criticized by Trump and reviled by members of his own Republican party.
“Though the outcome of the race in Georgia will not change, conducting this audit follows in the footsteps of the audit-triggered hand recount we conducted in November to provide further confidence in the accuracy, security, and reliability of the vote in Georgia,” says Raffensperger.
Raffensperger announced his office would partner with the GBI following allegations that Cobb County election workers did not adequately match signatures on absentee ballot applications ahead of the June primary. During the audit, officials will review a statistically significant subset of the signed absentee ballot envelopes and compare them to the ones on file in Georgia’s voter registration system.
“Conducting this audit does not in any way suggest that Cobb County was not properly following election procedures or properly conducting signature matching,” says Director of Elections Chris Harvey. Harvey is the former Chief Investigator for the Secretary of State’s Elections Office. “We chose Cobb County for this audit because they are well known to have one the best election offices in the state, and starting in Cobb will help as we embark on a statewide signature audit.”
The Cobb County audit is expected to take two weeks. Officials insist thought, it will not change the outcome of the November election.
Raffensperger did not say when the statewide audit would begin.
