I just want to point out that Georgia is conducting an illegal recount

[Recursion]

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/georgia-full-state-recount-2020-presidential-race/index.html

This recount is *specifically* illegal under Georgia law, and they're doing it, and nobody is stopping them.

For everybody who thinks I'm crazy that they won't overturn the electors at the state legislature level: you're just wrong. They're going to try to.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. What state statute makes them illegal?

[Thekaspervote]

2. It's not actually a recount..it's an audit. perfectly legal. Not going to change the outcome

[LisaL]

13. Does audit involve recounting the whole race by hand?

They are calling it an audit, but they are recounting the whole race by hand.

[Thekaspervote]

15. No, it depends on the total # of ballots cast.

[LisaL]

16. Well, they are going to recount all ballots in a presidential race.

That's not an audit, regardless of what they call it. That's a recount.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Is it?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214530876

[LAS14]

26. Thanks for posting this. Everyone interested in this thread should read it.

After I read this around mid-day, I was sorry to hear even outlets like the BBC saying "the Georgia Secretary of State has ordered a hand recount of the presidential results." It is an audit that was planned before the election started. The letter explains (to my satisfaction) why it covers all presidential ballots.

This is an illustration of the difficulties (as pointed out by the SOS) of trying to communicate via Tweet.

[LeftInTX]

31. BBC frequently gets US news wrong

They referred to Texas cities as Texan cities.

[PCIntern]

34. Isnt atexas it's own country? ask almost any RW Texan. They'll tell you they are

[Laelth]

4. How is it illegal?

I don’t follow your logic, there.



-Laelth

[EndlessWire]

5. Not a good sign at all. n/t

[Hoyt]

6. Would like to see what makes it illegal?

[Recursion]

11. Did the 2018 GA gubernatorial election just not happen for you? Abrams requested an audit like this

and the GA SoS (now the GA governor, and by the way the dude she was running against) ruled the process facially unlawful.

[Miguelito Loveless]

7. Can you cite the statute?

[Miigwech]

8. Do the STEAL !!!! Do the Deal! The Art of the Deal / Steal

WHERE ARE THE BIDEN LAWYERS TO STOP THIS hand count in the courts !!!!! The Biden side must demand that the state call it for him first!

[Roland99]

9. it's an audit...a partial recount. look up the guidelines on that

[LisaL]

10. Only GA is not doing a partial recount.

They are going to recount all ballots by hand.

[Roland99]

18. guidelines of audit (as stated by the GA SoS) are a partial recount but looks like it's changing

Link to tweet

According to law Georgia passed in 2019-- Georgia is required have a state-wide hand Risk Limiting Audit (RLA), trigging a recount.

According to this, due to the size of the votes, they're hand-counting them all but ARE aware that it must be completed by Nov 20


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-11/georgia-orders-hand-audit-of-ballots-in-presidential-race

Raffensperger said the deadline for certification is Nov. 20, so the audit must be done by then.

...

A Georgia law states that only courts can order recounts, but the secretary of state was able to do so by using an already planned audit process. The election was initially supposed to be subject to a so-called risk-limiting audit, which typically starts with a limited sample of ballots, and widens to more only if mistakes are found. Because the margin in the presidential race is small, the sample size would have been so large that it made more sense to count all of the ballots, said Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office.

Decisions about how to staff the recount will be left to counties, but Jones said most will call back poll workers who just finished the count. It will also be up to counties to pay for it. The workers will check the printed version of each ballot and create a tally in front of observers from both campaigns.

(Adds recount process in 10th, 11th paragraphs)

[triron]

27. Sorry but this sounds hoaky (I believe what you say). This is puke bullshit that stinks bigly.

Biden's lawyers need to get in there.

[LAS14]

28. This link, posted upthread, includes a detailed explanation from the GA SOS. It answers lots of

questions.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100214530876

[Roland99]

30. read that earlier but apparently pre-dates that add'l info

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-11/georgia-orders-hand-audit-of-ballots-in-presidential-race

Raffensperger said the deadline for certification is Nov. 20, so the audit must be done by then.

...

A Georgia law states that only courts can order recounts, but the secretary of state was able to do so by using an already planned audit process. The election was initially supposed to be subject to a so-called risk-limiting audit, which typically starts with a limited sample of ballots, and widens to more only if mistakes are found. Because the margin in the presidential race is small, the sample size would have been so large that it made more sense to count all of the ballots, said Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office.

[LAS14]

32. The reason "it made more sense" was because of the time it would take for workers to find...

... the 1,000,000 random ballots identified for the audit.

[Roland99]

33. doesn't bother me. Biden doesn't need GA.

if they want to be left out and mocked for years to come by not being done in time to certify, that's all kinds of ammo to use against Kemp when he's up for re-election!

[Thekaspervote]

20. Please open the link at post #3. Should explain it for you

[BlueMTexpat]

12. Please do cite the Georgia

statute that specifically makes this recount illegal.

I can't seem to find any.

Perhaps this will help: https://ballotpedia.org/Recount_laws_in_Georgia

In relevant part:

...
Can a recount be requested?

Yes. Election officials, including the secretary of state, may request recounts under certain circumstances explained below. These recounts may be conducted before the certification of election results. A losing candidate may also request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5%. This threshold was set in 2019 following the passage of H.B. 319. Georgia's official website describing its recount rules contains outdated information. There are no set deadlines for the completion of a candidate-requested recount.
...

***************
Making wild accusations is something that GOPers do. Please let us not sink to their level.

[LisaL]

14. Sure, Trump can request a recount.

First ballots have to be certified, then Trump could request a recount. They are not doing that. They are doing a so-called "audit" of the whole race.
Recounting all ballots by hand. That's not an audit. They are just calling it an audit.

[BlueMTexpat]

17. I was merely pointing

out that there is nothing "illegal" in what they are doing right now. And per GA law, the SoS can declare a recount even before certification.

In some ways, it might even have a calming effect on the crazies. Ultimately, Biden will still be declared - and certified - as the winner.

[LisaL]

19. I disagree.

Audit does not involve recounting the whole race by hand.
So they are not doing an audit.
GA does not have automatic recounts. Trump could request a recount, but he is not entitled to a hand recount.

[BlueMTexpat]

22. Just read

the link, please.

You can disagree all you want, but the law says that the SoS is perfectly able to do a recount.

[crickets]

21. There's a reason why the GA audit is essentially a recount.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1326549391075799041.html

In this particular case, GA will manually audit ALL of the ballots in the presidential race because of the type of risk-limiting audit they’ve chosen to do and because they chose the presidential race to audit. In risk-limiting audits, the percentage of ballots examined...

is based on margin of victory in race. The smaller the margin, the more ballots you audit. Because margin in presidential race in Georgia is so narrow, state would have to randomly select more than a million ballots to audit. It’s cheaper/more efficient to just audit all of them.

Another reason why what they're doing in GA is an audit and not a recount - because Georgia's election law says that a recount is done by having a scanner read a QR code printed on each ballot. It does not involve a manual count unless the scanners are shown to be untrustworthy. [snip]

Bottom line is GA is doing a quasi-audit, but not risk-a limiting audit because of how GA will conduct it (no randomly chosen ballots). It's also not a strict recount because of what GA law calls a recount - a machine reading QR codes.

There's much more there, so it's worth reading the whole thing.

I am annoyed that this is taking place because 1/ it feeds trump's narrative, and 2/ we the taxpayers are getting stuck with the bill for recounting an obvious win, but in the long run I am also cautiously optimistic it will embarrass and silence any Repubs who doubted the results.

[BlueMTexpat]

23. This. eom

[LAS14]

29. Thanks for this. We've got to fight hard for clarity and facts. nt

[regnaD kciN]

24. I'm with James Carville on this...

..."Sure. Let's recount everything. We get to beat him twice!"

[octoberlib]

25. Georgia law requires an audit very election year. They were going to do a down ballot race

but decided to do the Presidential because it was so close

[joshcryer]

35. This is likely to catch a few illegal votes, which they will likely catch.

So that they can point to "fraud" and give ammo to the fraud claims.

But it won't change the outcome.