WHOOPS

‘Multiple Mistakes’ Made in Fulton County Vote Audit But Result Stands

Three thousand too many absentee votes were counted for Biden, but they weren’t included in the state’s certified count anyway.

A consent order in Georgia revealed Monday that an audit to review the results of the 2020 election in Fulton County was plagued by “numerous mistakes,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The state’s election board said the errors were a result of votes being counted by hand, which saw some ballots tallied twice and others misallocated. Despite this, officials say, the mistakes weren’t enough to sway any election results—namely that Joe Biden bested Donald Trump in Georgia by about 12,000 votes. Officials chalked up the mishaps to “human error,” citing the multi-step process vote counters endured in the audit. In the end, the Journal-Constitution, which reviewed investigators’ findings, estimates that about “3,000 too many absentee votes [were] counted for Biden,” but those votes weren’t included in the state’s certified count. Because of the errors, state officials reportedly ordered Fulton County to implement new audit procedures and more-thorough training for its elections staff.