Last Updated on December 10, 2020
One south central county in Georgia has executed the recounts and audits that Georgia’s Secretary of State has mandated only to find that they cannot duplicate the results with fidelity. Of course, this inability to replicate the election results raises some questions.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State and that state’s ultimate Executive Branch authority on elections, received a letter from the chairwoman of the Coffee County Elections and Registration, Ernestine Thomas-Clark, saying her office “cannot certify the electronic recount numbers given its inability to repeatably duplicate creditable election results.”
Raffensberger’s office received the letter on December 4, 2020, but announced the recount was certified on December 7, 2020.
In what amounts to a rare dedication to Georgian’s right to a free, fair, and accurate election, Thomas-Clark explained her reasoning for denying certification of the Coffee County vote.
“Any system, financial, voting, or otherwise, that is not repeatable nor dependable should not be used,” Thomas-Clark wrote in the letter. “To demand certification of patently inaccurate results neither serves the objective of the electoral system nor satisfies the legal obligation to certify the electronic recount.”
Election officials from Coffee County provided Raffensperger’s office with documentation that “illuminates that the electronic recount lacks credibility.” The Coffee County election officials unequivocally asserted that no election board can “reconcile the anomalies reflected in the attached.”
DEVELOPING: @GaSecofState is now investigating #CoffeeCounty handling of November Presidential Election recount. "The Coffee County Board of Elections and Registration CANNOT certify the electronic recount numbers….." READ below! pic.twitter.com/4LgjeuvA9f
— TalkRadio 77 WABC (@77WABCradio) December 10, 2020
Chris Harvey, Georgia’s State Elections Director, called Coffee County’s elections director, Misty Martin, where Martin stated “that the hand audit showed that they were off by one vote from the original count, but now, following the recount, Coffee County’s tally was off by 51 votes.”
Martin also stated that Coffee County had comingled their Advance Voting and Election Day ballots, adding complications to the recount and auditing to the process.
Ultimately, according to the office, on Monday, Martin and Coffee County “completed the recount upload and provided the secretary of state’s office with the documentation from their Election Management System to back up their uploaded results.”
Raffensberger – who is also listed as the secretary for a corporation called Sweet Virgin Inc., which makes virgin mink hair weaves, has come under a huge amount of criticism for the lackadaisical and inept way his office has handled the election
Prominent Georgia Republicans to include the Georgia State GOP Chair, David Shafer, and US Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), have expressed concerns about Raffensperger’s performance.
“Raffensperger is more interested in covering up his gross incompetence than securing the integrity of our elections,” Hice tweeted Wednesday.
Hice, among others, has called on Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), to “put pressure” on Raffensberger to take action on allegations of election fraud.
