Georgia SOS says they will do a HAND RECOUNT for the presidential race in Georgia

[still_one]

I believe that is over 5 million counts by hand. How long will that take?

[COLGATE4]

1. Until about January 20,2021

[Celerity]

38. we hand count tens of millions of paper ballots in the UK in one day, 2 max

[SomedayKindaLove]

40. Is there a UK firm we can hire lol

I hear Canadians are very quick and experienced at this as well

[Celerity]

45. the RW will never give up the machines

[COLGATE4]

43. But the UK isn't Republican-led Georgia

They will be in no hurry It's to their advantage to draw this out as long as possible to keep their base of Deplorables agitated and loaming spittle to fo and avenge the slight against their Fearless Leader.

[Celerity]

44. the weaknesses of the Constitution are coming more and more to fore as one Party goes full-stop bad

faith for decades

The Senate itself (soon 70% of the seats held by only 30% of the population, and that 30% being far more white, less-educated, fundie christofascist, more reactionary, older, racist, RW, anti-science, anti-objective truth, etc, than the other 70%)

The EC

Far too much state's rights when it comes to federal elections

The rise of the imperial presidency

lifetime tenure in the federal judiciary

gerrymandering allowed for federal districts done by partisan hack state assemblies

etc etc

[Captain Zero]

2. That's nuts.

absolutely.

[GoCubsGo]

3. Knock yourself out, asshole.

It won't change the outcome of ANYTHING.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. It will placate His Lardship but could backfire wrt the senate elections.

[GoCubsGo]

9. Yep. Fingers crossed about it backfiring.

I agree that it's just more placation. Trump obviously thinks this is another 2000-Florida thing, which it obviously is not. It will not end the same way, either.

[soothsayer]

4. I would never get the same count twice

I’m terrible at that

[ffr]

5. Biden is currently up by 14,112 votes.

A hand recount sounds like the logical thing to do, if you want to delay a result for as long as possible.

[EarlG]

7. Georgia results are supposed to be certified by the Governor on 11/20

https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results_certification_dates,_2020

"Not later than 5:00 P.M. on the seventeenth day following the date on which such election was conducted, the Secretary of State shall certify the votes cast for all candidates (for federal and state office) and upon all questions voted for by the electors of more than one county and shall no later than that same time lay the returns for presidential electors before the Governor. The Governor shall enumerate and ascertain the number of votes for each person so voted and shall certify the slates of presidential electors receiving the highest number of votes. The Governor shall certify the slates of presidential electors no later than 5:00 P.M. on the eighteenth day following the date on which such election was conducted. Notwithstanding the deadlines specified in this Code section, such times may be altered for just cause by an order of a judge of superior court of this state."

https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2019/title-21/chapter-2/article-12/section-21-2-499/

They can go to court to try to change the date that the results are supposed to be certified.

[triron]

11. So a hand recount is not possible in that timeframe?

[EarlG]

13. I guess there are three options?

1) Machine recount, which could be done by 11/20

2) Hand recount by 11/20 (not impossible, but the number of people required to do all the counting in that timeframe would likely make it unfeasible)

3) Go to court and ask a judge to change the certification date, in order to be able to complete a hand recount. A judge might allow this -- if it takes six weeks then they can in theory finish the count and certify the slates of presidential electors by 12/14. If they can't finish the count by 12/14, then who knows. Supreme Court stepped in during Bush vs. Gore at that point.

Note I am not a lawyer so I'm just spitballing here.

[grantcart]

15. It also freezes any Trump legal action

[Drunken Irishman]

28. They will likely just certify the initial results.

And recertify if the recount changes those results.

[EarlG]

30. Ah

Makes sense.

[JCMach1]

31. Can't the vote be certified before recount?

Or, what does GA law say?

[Roland99]

8. Odds they rescind that announcement by next week?

[still_one]

12. Why would they? I suspect they are doing this because they somehow think it will help

the republicans in the runoffs

[Roland99]

17. Gonna cost the state some $$

[crickets]

39. Exactly. I'm furious because the candidate doesn't pay for the recount in GA. The state does.

There's no way an honest recount is going to change the outcome. It's waste of the state's time, resources, and taxpayer money that does nothing but add delay and discord to the situation. Of course, delay and discord is the point, but it's just one more slap to the face that we get stuck with the bill on top of everything else.

GA is turning bluer every year, and with all of the mail in ballots this time around, the machines couldn't keep the Repubs' near stranglehold on the state. It cracks their power base as as well as the illusion that GA is still a majority R state. Boo hoo for them.


eta - although there is another interesting line of thought mentioned further downthread:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214530124#post35

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

10. All they have to do is steal a few Biden ballots a little at a time.

Who will be guarding the ballots for the great amount of time it takes to count 5 million of them?

Democrats have to set up major video surveillance of everything, everywhere, all the time.

And have as many Democrats equipped with video surveillance devices everywhere.

[marie999]

16. If there is a hand recount there will be a Democrat and Republican watching in person at every site.

Not just at every site, but at every position that is doing the recount.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

37. They need to be recording it on video. And the ballots

need to be guarded 24/7.

The more possibilities Republicans have to cheat is directly proportional to the number of ways they will cheat.

[Demsrule86]

14. That is bullshit. The networks should call it.

[frazzled]

18. By law, they must certify vote by November 20

Maybe they'll certify before the recount, separately, is finished. At any rate, it doesn't matter. We don't need Georgia.

In Georgia, individual counties have 10 days after the election day to certify the results of the vote. That date for that this election cycle is Nov.13.

After the votes are certified on a county level, they are then sent to the Secretary of State's office, which then has to certify the votes cast for all the candidates on both the state and local level "not later than 5:00 P.M. on the seventeenth day following the date on which such election was conducted." That date for this election cycle would be Nov. 20.

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/elections/2020-georgia-election-results-certified/85-52fff009-8e76-412b-a1d5-086ec3abbb50

[Drunken Irishman]

26. That's exactly what they'll do. Certify the initial results.

If the recount yields a different result, they'll just recertify.

[DeminPennswoods]

19. The counting will go quickly

since all the mailed ballots are opened and verified. They ballots will be hand validated, but they'll be run through the scanners for the arithmatic is my guess.

[Ferrets are Cool]

20. Serious question: WHY? It won't change the outcome of the election for POTUS

Just for optics and to waste tax dollars?

[Eid Ma Clack Shaw]

33. If it shows essentially the same outcome

then it builds confidence and harms the fRAauD narratives. Awful as they mostly are, I bet an awful lot of Republican officials would be grateful for anything that allows them to disprove Trump’s nutty assertions that currently have them fearing reprisals from he and his insane base.

Of course, if enough votes change hands that Biden’s lead is significantly diminished or overturned then there has obviously been massive GOP fraud by Kemp and Raffensperger, but my suspicion is that the latter in particular wouldn’t be eager to sign off on that.

[ananda]

21. Does it matter?

A Democrat will be president on January 20th regardless.

[triron]

22. So how does this stop it from being called soon?

[Boogiemack]

23. They should check those Senate votes while they are at it. nt

[tarheelsunc]

24. Good. Now we can watch shitstain lose the state twice. eom

[Kaleva]

25. Thats fine.

[LisaL]

27. Except it will take them a long time and GA is supposed to certify soon.

NT

[Kaleva]

29. Trump needs those EC votes. Biden doesn't

[LisaL]

32. But those votes should be Biden's.

NT

[The Great Escape]

34. Risk-Limiting Audit

is the term being used by Journalist/Author Kim Zetter on twitter.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[crickets]

41. Interesting. Thanks for that info. nt

[rolypolychloe]

35. It's a good thing

Georgia's voting machines had a software update just before the election to fix a screen glitch. This is a red flag that the machines may have been re-programmed to move democrat votes to the republican column. In a close election, it only takes a few dozen votes per district to swing the election. Now, the new machines do produce a paper ballot, but the software change could have been to produce a bar code that differs from what the voter selected. Then, if the paper ballots are scanned instead of examined visually, the distorted results still occur. I would expect that the software change is clever enough to just swap votes during election days and is disabled before and after so it looks good during testing.

So, other than the delay, a hand recount would uncover such shenanigans. Everyone is blaming Trumps antics for making the mail in ballots lean so heavily to Biden, but maybe machines are distorting the in-person vote and Biden actually won in a landslide.

Be great if this could be done before the Senate races or only paper ballots are accepted in the Senate races.

[crickets]

42. I had a pretty angry response above about the recount/audit.

You have definitely provided some food for thought here. We'll see. This may come back to bite Kemp et al in the rear end after all. That would be sweet.

[skip fox]

36. Over six weeks, an attorney in Atlanta tells me.