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October 2, 2024
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“We’re going to have an orderly transfer from this administration to the next one”

Gwinnett County election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election at the Beauty P. Baldwin Voter Registrations and Elections Building on November 16 in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Gwinnett County election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election at the Beauty P. Baldwin Voter Registrations and Elections Building on November 16 in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Megan Varner/Getty Images

There are only about 300,000 ballots left to be hand-counted in Georgia out of the nearly 5 million cast in the 2020 presidential election, and the vast majority of counties are reporting results that are “spot on” to the initial tallies, or finding only minor discrepancies, according to Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting systems implementation manager. 

Election officials from 29 counties across Georgia told CNN that they already completed their audits and found no discrepancies with the results – further discrediting President Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the state.

Regarding the 2,600 uncounted ballots that were found in Floyd County, Sterling says the election county board will rescan all early votes along with provisional votes that were found to be mismanaged. 

The updated results will give Trump a net pickup of 778 votes, slightly narrowing President-elect Joe Biden’s statewide lead, which is more than 13,000 votes.

The state is on a “good schedule right now” to finish the audit by Wednesday, which puts the state on track to certify its presidential results by Friday, as required by state law. If this timeline holds, it would thwart longshot efforts by Trump to delay certification and potentially overturn the results of the election through the Electoral College.

“The whole point of the audit is to prove the (initial) outcome was correct” and to “verify the winners,” Sterling said.

What comes next: After the results are certified the Trump campaign can request an official recount. Sterling said that the state of Georgia has already procured high-speed ballot scanners for all 159 counties to use, in the event a recount is requested. 

The following Georgia counties told CNN that they finished their audits without finding any discrepancies: Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Baker, Baldwin, Barrow, Ben Hill, Berrien, Brantley, Brooks, Butts, Calhoun, Candler, Carroll, Charlton, Chattooga, Clay, Coffee, Cook, Crawford, Crisp, Dade, Dawson, Decatur, Dooly, Early, Meriwether, Murray, Oconee.

There were minor adjustments in a few counties, officials told CNN.

  • In Catoosa County, one Biden vote was reclassified as a Trump vote after the audit.
  • In Coweta County, a write-in vote for “Biden Harris” was officially added to Biden’s count.
  • In Effingham County, Trump lost one vote and Biden lost seven votes after the audit.
  • In Oglethorpe County, there was a one-vote discrepancy, but officials wouldn’t give details.