A hand count of ballots in the U.S. Senate runoff was almost identical to the original computer count in which Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican Herschel Walker, according to the results of an election audit.
The audit counted five more votes for Warnock and four fewer for Walker out of a randomized sample of nearly 165,000 ballots reviewed this week.
Overall, Warnock won the race by over 99,000 votes out of more than 3.5 million ballots cast, according to the full count of computer-scanned ballots.
“This audit showed once again that our system works and that Georgia’s voting system is accurate,” said Secretary of State Raffensperger on Thursday.
Georgia secretary of state
Georgia secretary of state
Of Georgia’s 159 counties, election offices in 138 of them participated in the optional runoff audit requested by Raffensperger. Georgia law requires an audit after each general election every two years, and state election officials are encouraging more frequent ballot reviews as a way to verify vote counts.
Election workers reported the audited counts were the same as the original results in many counties. About 95% of ballot batches had no deviation from the original vote totals for each candidate.
Previous audits checked the results of this year’s race for secretary of state’s race and the 2020 presidential election.
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