Coffee County submitted a letter to the Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee with evidence claiming that the Dominion Voting Systems (Dominion) machines provided inconsistent results in their county. Like the rest of Georgia and 28 other states, the county used Dominion’s Democracy Suite 5.5.
The Georgia Star News was informed that the secretary of state’s office stands by the information issued in its press release last week stating that Coffee County workers likely double-scanned batches of ballots.
Included in Coffee County’s letter were six exhibits highlighting the history of problems the county encountered during the elections and recounts:
The basis for the dilemma is simple[:] the election summary report for the electronic recount tabulated votes in a manner that resulted in more collective votes being cast for the Presidential candidates than the total number of votes reflected within the report. The inconsistent count could not be reconciled. (emphasis added)
The county election board also emphasized the fact that even after scanning nearly 200 overlooked ballots during the electronic recount, the system didn’t change its vote totals didn’t change. The board remarked that it had then rescanned all ballots three times, only to find that the system still wouldn’t reflect the additional ballots.
The letter added that their Dominion technician representative couldn’t resolve their issues. They also noted that they’d shared that information with the secretary of state’s office, but no officials came to examine their issues.
“The decision not to certify the electronic recount was the result of a unanimous vote by Coffee County Board of Elections,” read the board’s letter. “However, this decision was not made until the Board could first have the data reviewed and explained by its Dominion representative. The data reflected in this statement was presented to the representative. He had NO explanation for the inaccuracies. He could not reconcile the electronic recount report data or explain how it so dramatically differed from the two prior counts.”
Additionally, the letter recounted a lengthy history of reporting previous problems with Dominion to their state representative and the secretary of state’s office without hearing back from either, dating back to early June. Their elections board attached copies of that letter as Exhibit 7.
The county presented a video explaining some of the system issues during the Georgia House of Representatives Governmental Affairs Committee hearing last week. In this latest letter, the elections board explained that they’d shared the video with their state representative, Dominic LaRiccia (R-Douglas), in early June. In the video, the election board alleged that the voting system could allow supervisors to override votes, accept double votes, and scan and vote on blank ballots.
The Coffee County Board of Elections has for many months reported various aspects of these problems to the Secretary of State[,] receiving no assistance in correcting these problems,” stated the letter. “As for the investigation, the Secretary of State chose not to assist us or help evaluate the root cause of the refusal to certify the election recount[,] but certified the statewide election results despite our findings.
The county election board’s spokesperson didn’t respond to The Georgia Star request for comment by press time. According to their letter, the secretary of state’s office also didn’t inform them of the opened investigation into their election process.
The county had previously submitted a letter on December 4th summarizing these claims against the Dominion systems. They noted that they were unable to repeat duplicate, creditable results.
Garland Favorito – the founder of nonpartisan voting integrity organization VOTERGA and a witness in the recent Georgia House committee hearing, explained to The Star that double-scanning votes wouldn’t explain how the vote totals didn’t change after scanning an additional 200 votes.
Favorito explained, “39 votes basically came out of thin air. Here’s the key: they had 39 new votes added across the county, but they had no new ballots. Then, [the county] realized that they had missed 185 ballots, so they added those in and the totals didn’t change any. There were no changes in the totals. And the third time, they tried it and the totals didn’t change.”
In the past few weeks, Favorito submitted copies of an email from a Ware County election official confirming that 37 votes were incorrectly awarded to Democratic candidate Joe Biden instead of President Donald Trump.
“They know that the majority of the press is too stupid to know that they’re lying,” he stated. “And they make it up. The local news media won’t challenge them.”
The secretary of state’s office hasn’t issued another statement concerning Coffee County’s second letter.
Read the full 30 page letter and review the exhibits:
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Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Georgia Star News and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected].
