This is a press release from the Georgia Secretary of State.
Beginning last Thursday, election officials in all of Georgia’s 159 counties hand counted randomly selected ballots as part of the statewide audit of the 2024 Presidential Election. A risk limit of 5% was set for the risk limiting audit (RLA), a limit that is among the best in the country for jurisdictions that conduct RLAs.
The Secretary of State’s office is pleased to announce that the audit confirmed the outcome of the contest.
In total, county election officials audited 442 batches of ballots. Of the 442 batches, 381 (86.1%) had no deviation from the original candidate vote totals. Out of the other 61, all fell within an expected margin of error for a hand count.
Below is a comparison of the vote totals for each candidate for the batches that were audited:
This small amount of difference is well within the expected margin of error for an audit of this size, and largely caused by human error during the hand counting process.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger commented upon hearing the results of the audit. “Georgia’s election systems are our nation’s best,” he said. “This is exactly why I’m leading the push to see our reforms instituted on a national level. This audit shows that our system works and that our county election officials conducted a secure, accurate election – they are the cream of the crop.”
Georgia’s audit was supported by Voting Works and their Arlo auditing software.
The requirement for a post-election, pre-certification audit was introduced in Georgia during the 2019 legislative session following the introduction of a voter-verified paper-ballot voting system. The purpose of the audit is to ensure the correct outcome of election contests. The successful completion of this year’s RLA audit is one more indicator that Georgia is the #1 state for Election Integrity.
