Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has reversed course, after the Electoral College has voted, and ordered an audit Monday of voter signatures on absentee ballot envelopes as Trump has been demanding.
The audit will be in Cobb County and Raffensperger said he may do a full state audit depending on what they find.
According to officials, this cannot change the result of the election as the actual ballot envelopes cannot be matched with the actual ballots but could impact the Senate runoff if they find problems.
“People want to have confidence in the election. That’s why I felt like it would be good to do a signature audit just to bring people peace of mind,” Kemp said.
From AJC:
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ordered an audit Monday of voter signatures on absentee ballot envelopes in Cobb County, a process that won’t change vote counts in the state’s presidential election.
The signature check in Cobb comes after county election officials already reviewed signatures when voters first returned absentee ballots — and after President Donald Trump repeatedly called for further verification of election results.
The unprecedented signature audit could show whether signatures on absentee ballot envelopes really did match the voter signatures kept on file. But there’s no way to match voter signatures to ballots after envelopes were opened. The right to cast a secret ballot is guaranteed by the state Constitution.
“I feel we need to take steps to restore confidence in our elections,“ Raffensperger said during a press conference at the state Capitol. “Starting immediately, we are pulling all of our resources together with GBI to conduct a signature match audit in Cobb County.”
The county audit will review a statistically significant sample of absentee ballot envelopes from both the primary and general election, according to the secretary of state’s office.
New: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says the state will conduct a limited signature match audit in Cobb County, with the results to be released in two weeks. #gapol pic.twitter.com/8MhYlp7kiP
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) December 14, 2020
A reminder: The unprecedented signature audit could show whether signatures on absentee ballot envelopes really did match the voter signatures kept on file. But there’s no way to match voter signatures to ballots after envelopes were opened. https://t.co/nfzSlQapUC
— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) December 14, 2020
