Fulton County elections board acknowledges missing ballots from Tuesday's election, says later found

The Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections is acknowledging “some batches” of absentee in-person ballots were missed from the Nov. 7 elections but were found during the recount. 

During the board's public meeting Tuesday morning, Elections Director Nadine Williams said that “some batches” of Advance Voting Ballots, or early in-person ballots, were missed from last Tuesday's election but were found during the recount Monday. 

The recount was conducted “to confirm the accuracy of the election results before Election certification,” according to a notice posted on the board's website. 

During the meeting Tuesday, Williams also said the process of counting the early voting ballots will be completed by the afternoon and that notes of what happened will be taken to ensure the issue doesn’t occur in next year’s elections. 

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said in a statement released to Just the News on Tuesday, "This is exactly why we have an auditable paper ballot system. When a county like Fulton makes a mistake, the system can be audited and corrected before certification." 

BRE Chair Patrise Perkins-Hooker told Just the News on Tuesday regarding the ballots, "The recount will not delay our certification. We will be certifying the election in 45 minutes or so. The second recount was undertaken to verify the accuracy of the Advanced Voting ballots which did not agree in the first recount with the election day totals. It was only 300 ballots off. This error was the result of a group of ballots in one box not being scanned in last night. The oversight was caught last night and today's recount was called."