How Much The GA Presidential Recount Will Cost, Who Pays, Timing

GEORGIA — The recount of the more than 5 million votes cast in the presidential election earlier this month has begun at the request of President Donald Trump. Trump's campaign filed a petition for recount in Georgia, just a few days after the state completed its own audit.

The audit showed some discrepancies between Trump and President-elect Joe Biden's numbers, with Trump having roughly 12,000 fewer votes.

Gabriel Sterling, with the Secretary of State's Office, told 11Alive that was "a good audit."

"We had a lot of people in the room who are experts of risk-limiting audits who say we did a really good deal," Sterling said.

Now, the state has begun to count the votes again, which started at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, and is expected to be complete by midnight on Dec. 2. Once complete, this will be the final and certified recount in Georgia for this election.

Counties will foot the bill for the recount, the same as they did for the hand count audit, although it won't be as pricey, just the cost of staff.

But Sterling and other election officials worry about the workers who have been involved with the election since Nov. 3.

"We know some of them will be working over the weekend or more than eight days during their workdays," Sterling told the TV station. "We expect it to get done next week, but we want to give enough flexibility for the counties to allow for this and to allow for our transparent process.

"It's not as easy as you can just throw these ballots into the machines. You've got to keep them batched by the four original buckets that they came in: election day votes, provisional votes, absentee votes, and early votes. We have to report them by precinct."

The Secretary of State's website will be updated as counties complete the recount, with smaller counties likely to be done sooner due to fewer votes to check.

"Smaller counties in the state tended to go for President Trump," Sterling told the station. "We're going to be looking for making sure it's lining up with what those county results were."

Georgia's governor and top election official both certified the presidential election results on Friday, securing President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the state's 16 electoral votes.

"We are focused on ensuring that every aspect of Georgia state law and the U.S. Constitution are followed so that every legal vote is counted," Trump's legal team said in a news release. "President Trump and his campaign continue to insist on an honest recount in Georgia, which has to include signature matching and other vital safeguards."

The president's claim ignores steps Georgia election workers take to ensure signatures are checked twice, once when a voter requests a mail-in ballot, and again when the ballot is returned to a local election office. So signature checks are not part of the hand recount, FactCheck.org reported.

"Let's address this disinformation about signature match," Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote Nov. 15 on Facebook. "We strengthened signature match. We helped train election officials on GBI [Georgia Bureau of Investigation] signature match — which is confirmed twice before a ballot is ever cast."

According to a state law passed last year, election officials must "promptly notify" voters about a ballot rejection due to an issue with the signature, allowing them to "cure" their ballot by casting a provisional ballot — along with identification information — within three days of the polls closing on Election Day.

Raffensperger and Kemp last week "validated two vote counts: an initial machine count of paper ballots, and a manual recount to audit the outcome," the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

The two counts showed a slight discrepancy between results, with the machine count showing Biden received 12,670 more votes than President Donald Trump, but the recount audit showing Biden ahead by 12,284 votes.

Although certified, Kemp criticized the way election officials handled the audit.

"We demand complete explanations for all discrepancies identified so our citizens have complete confidence in our elections," Kemp said. "In the runoff election, we cannot have lost memory cards or stacks of uncounted ballots. We must have full transparency in all monitoring and counting. Every legal vote must be counted, and the security of the ballot box must be protected."

During the news conference Friday, Raffensperger said he plans "to propose election-law changes aimed at increasing trust in the results, by allowing state officials to intervene in counties that have systemic problems in administering elections, requiring photo ID for absentee voting and enabling more challenges to voters who might not live where they say," WSB-TV reported.

On Monday, the State Elections Board approved counties providing drop boxes for absentee ballots and recording the boxes via video cameras. Additionally, the board approved the ability for counties to begin opening and scanning absentee ballots before the election day, although that is not required, the AJC reported.

The ongoing drama over the state's closely watched election results includes death threats against top election officials, who are Republicans, prompting the FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into concerns.

Sterling tweeted Saturday that he has had "multiple attempted hacks of my emails, police protection around my home, the threats."

A statement by the FBI states that, "the GBI has information of possible threats. We are in the process of investigating any such statements directed at Georgia officials to determine their credibility."

Read more: President Trump Seeks GA Recount; Election Officials Threatened