Ballot-Envelope Audit Ordered By Raffensperger For Cobb County

ATLANTA, GA — Framing it as a way to answer accusations of voter fraud once and for all, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday ordered an audit of absentee-ballot envelopes signatures from Cobb County for the general and primary elections.

President Donald Trump, who’s claimed without evidence that he won the election, has repeatedly demanded signature verifications to shore up his case. On Monday, Trump tweeted that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was a “fool” and a “clown” for not backing him up.

“Now that the signature matching has been attacked, again and again with no evidence, I feel we need to take steps to restore confidence in our elections,” said Raffensperger, who is also a Republican.“Starting immediately, we are pulling all of our resources together with GBI to conduct a signature match audit in Cobb County.”

Raffensperger said the audit will examine a statistically significant number of absentee-ballot envelopes from both the primary and general elections, checking to see if signatures on file match signatures on the envelopes. The audit targets Cobb County because of a complaint filed in June about its signature-verification process. The audit should last about two weeks.

If newly found discrepancies disqualify any voters, it won’t change the vote count. Secret ballots are guaranteed by Georgia’s constitution, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and there’s no way at this point to match a cast ballot with an open envelope.

Other than complaints from Trump supporters, no problem has been reported so far with signature verification, reported the Atlanta newspaper. State data shows that election officials rejected less than 1 percent of all 2020 absentee ballots because of signature issues, about the same rate ballots as reported in 2018.

In addition to the Cobb audit, Raffensperger said his office would be working with an unnamed accredited university on a third-party signature match statewide audit study.

Cobb County, Georgia's third most populous county and once a Republican stronghold, flipped overwhelmingly blue during the Nov. 3 election. In addition to most local races being won by Democrats, President-elect Joe Biden beat Trump in Cobb County, winning about 56 percent of the vote. Trump won only 42 percent, with the remaining 2 percent going to other candidates.

Kemp’s office issued a statement late Monday backing up Raffensperger.

“I am glad Secretary Raffensperger has finally taken this necessary step to begin restoring confidence in our state's election processes,” Kemp said. “I have called for a signature audit repeatedly since the Nov. 3 election. As Georgians head back to the polls for the Jan. 5 runoffs, it is absolutely vital for every vote cast to be legal and for only legal votes to be counted."

"The past few weeks, partisans have asked that I choose party above law. That’s not gonna happen,” Raffensperger said at the news conference. “My loyalty is to God, the constitution and our nation.”

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