Georgia election chief probes ‘unacceptable’ tabulation delay that could flip key state House race

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) opened an investigation Friday into one county’s failure to upload hundreds of votes that flipped a key state House race, narrowing the Democrats’ new majority. 

According to Raffensperger’s office, a routine post-election review in Seminole County discovered nearly 400 missing votes, which were uploaded late. Those late votes flipped the outcome of the District 154 state House race from Democratic candidate Harry James to Republican incumbent Rep. Gerald Greene. 

“Georgia’s election safeguards are designed to identify discrepancies, and that is exactly what these guardrails did,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “Our office identified a significant discrepancy, alerted county officials, and uncovered a failure to properly upload election results. This oversight didn’t just affect the numbers – it changed who was leading an election. That is unacceptable, and we intend to find out exactly how it happened.”

Raffensperger’s office said it noticed a discrepancy between the number of votes recorded in Seminole County and the amount uploaded to the state during a routine post-election review. That’s when Seminole County discovered a memory card containing 388 votes had not been uploaded.

Raffensperger’s office is investigating how exactly that happened and whether corrective measures need to be taken.

The Democrats’ historic blue wave Tuesday didn’t just flip Congress, but dismantled Republican majorities in states where they’ve long held power. Among the top ones was Georgia, where Republicans have long controlled both chambers of the General Assembly and have pushed through some of the harshest voting suppression laws in the country. 

Not a single Republican won a statewide race in Georgia, which gave Democrats a slim majority in the state House of Representatives for the first time in 22 years. Democratic victories also greatly narrowed the GOP’s hold of the state Senate. 

After adding those missing votes, Greene now leads the race by 262 votes. Flipping the race means Democrats’ control of the state House could winnow to just one seat. County election officials have until Monday to certify the election. 

“Every vote matters, and in a close election, even a relatively small number of unreported ballots can change the outcome,” Raffensperger added.