388 Uncounted Votes Flip Georgia House Race as Raffensperger Opens Investigation
Georgia election officials have opened an investigation after 388 Election Day votes were left out of the first unofficial results in a state House race, a gap that changed which candidate was in the lead.
The problem surfaced in Seminole County in southwest Georgia and involved the tight contest for House District 154 in Tuesday's midterm elections.
Democratic challenger Harry James first appeared to lead longtime Republican Rep. Gerald Greene by 58 votes. Once the missing Seminole County results were processed, Greene moved ahead by 262 votes, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office.
How the Gap Was Caught
The discrepancy was found during routine post-election checks. State officials noticed that roughly 388 more voters had checked in at Seminole County polling places than the number of ballots included in the county's reported Election Day totals.
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The Secretary of State's office contacted county election officials. According to Raffensperger's office, the Seminole County Board of Elections then determined that a memory card holding election results had not been uploaded into the county's election management system.
"Georgia's election safeguards are designed to identify discrepancies, and that is exactly what these guardrails did," Raffensperger said.
"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," he added.
County Pushes Back
Seminole County Elections Supervisor Ron Foskey disputed descriptions of the memory card as missing or newly found. "There was no memory card 'discovered', 'missing', or 'found'," Foskey said.
"All precinct card chain of custody protocols were followed, and all memory cards were accounted for by the Seminole County Board of Elections on Election night," he said. Foskey explained that the county's Election Management System "did not complete its program for the last precincts memory card," and that the first summary report had been marked "Unofficial and Incomplete."
Election workers determined Friday that the final step needed to validate and publish the results had not been finished. Once it was completed, the new report was marked "Final and Complete" and included the 388 ballots. County officials said the final total matched the ballots counted, the scanner tapes and the data on the memory cards.
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No public evidence has emerged that the 388 ballots were fraudulent, improperly cast or added after Election Day. The dispute centers on why their results were left out of the county's first report, and the state investigation is expected to determine exactly where the breakdown happened.
Why the Seat Matters
The District 154 race carries extra weight because Democrats won control of the Georgia House on Tuesday, flipping a number of Republican-held seats. If Greene holds on, the incoming Democratic majority will be one seat smaller.
Greene has served in the Georgia House for decades. He first won election in 1982 as a Democrat and switched to the Republican Party after the 2010 election. His district covers a large part of southwest Georgia, including Seminole County.
"Every vote matters, and in a close election, even a relatively small number of unreported ballots can change the outcome," Raffensperger said.
County officials faced a Monday deadline to certify their results. Until certification and any challenges are complete, Greene's lead over James remains unofficial.