Posted on 12/17/2020 8:08:38 PM PST by rxsid
SECRETARY RAFFENSPERGER LAUNCHES COBB COUNTY AND STATEWIDE SIGNATURE MATCH AUDITS
(ATLANTA)-Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a signature match audit in Cobb County and an additional statewide signature match audit. The Secretary of State’s Office will partner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct the Cobb County audit and with an accredited university for the statewide audit.
“Election integrity has been a top priority since day one of my administration,” said Secretary Raffensperger. “Though the outcome of the race in Georgia will not change, conducting this audit follows in the footsteps of the audit-triggered hand recount we conducted in November to provide further confidence in the accuracy, security, and reliability of the vote in Georgia. I look forward to working with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Cobb County, and any other future partners to secure the vote in the Peach State.”
Secretary Raffensperger first announced that following specific allegations that election workers in Cobb County had not adequately conducted signature matching on absentee ballot applications ahead of the June primary elections, the Office of the Secretary of State would partner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct an audit of the signature match in Cobb County. The audit will consist of reviewing a statistically significant subset of the signed absentee ballot envelopes and comparing those signatures to the ones on file in Georgia’s voter registration system.
“Conducting this audit does not in any way suggest that Cobb County was not properly following election procedures or properly conducting signature matching,” said Chris Harvey, Director of Elections for the Secretary of State’s office, who was formerly the Chief Investigator for the office. “We chose Cobb County for this audit because they are well known to have one the best election offices in the state, and starting in Cobb will help as we embark on a statewide signature audit. Just like Cobb County volunteered to be a pilot county for our new voting system, we thank everyone at the Cobb County elections office for their cooperation with this process especially while voting is underway for the runoff.”
The audit of Cobb County’s signature match system is expected to take two weeks. However, it will not change the outcome of the November election.
Raffensperger also announced a planned statewide signature match audit. The Office of the Secretary of State will partner with an accredited university to conduct a third-party signature match statewide audit study.
I once read somewhere, sometime, something to effect that...
If elections could truly bring about change, they would be illegal.
Oh, NOW he launches signature audits, after Lin Wood said he’d be going to jail.
Unless it's Hillsdale college, the fix is in.
Phony, CYA move. Nothing will be found.
“Someone’ gave that order to stop counting and get the observers out of the counting rooms. THAT person should be found and hanged for treason...”
Absolutely. That person, or group of people, should be considered the worst villains in American history.
Doesn’t matter. He made clear it won’t change the outcome. This is a move to pacify the simple minded.
Think it’s legit? Or are they gonna pull the you can’t watch me do my job from any closer than 20’ away?
“The outcome of the election will not change, regardless of how much fraud is discovered.” “Vote for us in January!”
Yesa monitor took a pic. They were across the room. So who knows whats going on.
The GOP is part of the problem. They have become weak and corrupt to the point of evil. Either they fight along with us or they are our enemies. Save the Republic!
I agree, but he has to exhaust all options before breaking the glass on the last one. That’s why I’m being patient. This is going to happen. The stars are all aligning and it’s just time. The whole world is at stake.
Why not?
Conducting this audit does not in any way suggest that Cobb County was not properly following election procedures or properly conducting signature matching
Why not? The article already says they didn't.
Signature audit ‘political,’ says Cobb County elections director
By Aleks Gilbert agilbert@mdjonline.com
A state-ordered audit of signatures on Cobb County’s absentee ballot envelopes is likely politically motivated, county elections director Janine Eveler told the Cobb Board of Elections during a meeting this week.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cited “specific allegations that election workers in Cobb County had not adequately conducted signature matching on absentee ballot applications ahead of the June primary” when he announced the audit Monday, just before the Board of Elections meeting.
But conducting the audit “does not in any way suggest that Cobb County was not properly following election procedures or properly conducting signature matching,” state Director of Elections Chris Harvey said in a prepared statement.
Rather, the office chose Cobb for the audit “because they are well known to have one of the best election offices in the state, and starting in Cobb will help as we embark on a statewide signature audit.”
Cobb’s audit is expected to begin Friday, Eveler said. The secretary of state’s office will partner with the University of Georgia to conduct a separate, statewide audit of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes at a later date, Raffensperger said at a Wednesday news conference.
The audit will not change the outcome of Georgia’s presidential election, Raffensperger said. Once absentee ballots are removed from their envelopes, they can no longer be matched to those envelopes, making it impossible to invalidate ballots that came in envelopes whose signatures do not match those the state has on file.
Eveler pushed back Wednesday on the notion her department hadn’t followed procedures in the lead up to the June 9 primary.
“(Raffensperger) is getting a lot of pressure from his own party to do this, and so they need to find a place to do it, and they picked us,” she said.
In a tweet Monday, Trump said “What a fool Governor @BrianKempGA of Georgia is. Could have been so easy, but now we have to do it the hard way. Demand this clown call a Special Session and open up signature verification, NOW.”
Kemp applauded Raffensperger’s announcement of the audit, saying in a prepared statement he was glad the secretary had “finally taken this necessary step to begin restoring confidence in our state’s election processes.”
The allegation in question came from Cobb parks department employee Morgan White, who had been loaned to the elections department in order to assist with the processing of absentee ballot applications ahead of the June 9 primary, Eveler said.
In a sworn affidavit, White described her work matching the signatures on absentee ballot applications with signatures the county already had on file, such as those from a driver’s license or other documents.
She said a Cobb County elections department supervisor told her to process applications with mismatching signatures as she would process the applications with matching signatures.
“The supervisor said that the people who process the ballots when the actual vote comes in would catch the mismatched signatures,” she said in the affidavit.
The affidavit was one piece of evidence Trump’s reelection campaign submitted in connection with a lawsuit filed in Fulton County, according to Eveler. The campaign insists Trump would have won Georgia — a state he lost by more than 10,000 votes — were it not for widespread fraud, allegations Raffensperger, a Republican, has strongly denied.
In an email exchange Eveler shared with the Marietta Daily Journal, the Cobb elections supervisor, Kenneth Parmer, said “I can say categorically that I have never approved or personally ... instructed anyone to create a ballot when a signature did not match the signature we had on file.”
In another email in that exchange, Jennie Mayes, absentee coordinator in the Cobb elections department, wrote, “It is not uncommon for new employees to look at only one document rather than all available (non-application) documents and for more experienced staff to see the patterns in the signatures over time.
“The misunderstanding may have been in the fact that we do try to give the voter the benefit of the doubt when possible when we are looking at applications,” she continued, “while holding the ballots to a higher standard with more vigorous scrutiny.”
Raffensperger said his office would partner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct the audit. State Rep. David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, chairman of the Cobb Legislative Delegation, slammed the audit, saying the GBI’s involvement could discourage the minority vote ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff.
“If I signed my voter registration back in the (1990s) — and my signature now is probably different than it was back then,” Wilkerson said, “the fear though is that if I signed that incorrectly and I hear the GBI is checking signatures ... is (the U.S. Senate race) that important for me that I can risk the GBI starting to come knock on my door?”
He also questioned the logic of auditing signatures from general election ballots when the allegation concerns the June primaries.
“I’m not sure why they’re doing it now, except for the fact that the secretary of state’s office is being bullied, so now they got to bully somebody else, I guess,” Wilkerson said.
Yes it does. It's a prima facie violation of the Equal Protection Clause. Cobb County ballots are now 'elevated' above all other GA counties, as Cobb ballots -- now under a truly legal Signature Verification test -- stand above the rest of Georgia counties.
Which was monitored in realtime by E chelon, F ive Eyes and god knows who else. All Trump has to do is unmask.
Great info on ballot numbers
Are you kidding? 99% of accredited universities in the country are extreme left-wing operations and their faculty is 97% Democrat and anti-Trump.
The ones from the carnival. They throw in a palm reading for free.
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