The race for Georgia House District 154 changed hands after a massive counting error. Democrat Harry James held a 58-vote lead over Republican Gerald Greene on November 9. Then, Seminole County uploaded hundreds of votes that were never counted. The lead vanished, and the Republican took the lead.
State officials found the gap during a review. Roughly 388 extra sign-ins than counted ballots were recorded by Seminole County. Local officials went back through their results. They found that results from one memory card were left out of the first tally.
Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, launched an inquiry regarding the delay. He said the state’s checks worked as intended. His office found the discrepancy and told county officials what was wrong. Now, they want to know how the county missed it.
Raffensperger called the oversight unacceptable. He noted that this mistake changed who was leading an election. These guardrails functioned precisely as intended, since Georgia’s election safeguards aim to spot discrepancies. He promised to find out exactly how it happened.
Seminole County Elections Supervisor Ron Foskey denied assertions about a missing card on Sunday. A Facebook post by an account called “Donald Trump for President” said a card was lost. Foskey said no card was missing. He explained that the Election Management System simply had not finished its final step.
That stage concluded when officials gathered on Friday. Foskey stated the scanner tape and data on the cards matched the number of ballots cast. RedState reported that the system showed the last step to validate and publish results were not completed. The county insists it had every card on election night but the report was incomplete.
By Friday, the lead had flipped. Raffensperger’s office said Greene went from trailing by less than 100 votes to leading by 262. The AJC reported the same lead. Gerald Greene had 10,193 votes and Harry James had 9,932 votes according to the state site by Saturday.
Subtract those numbers, and you get a 261-vote lead. This is one vote shy of the figure in Friday’s release. Greene said he was in disbelief. He hopes his lead will hold. Democrats would retain control of the chamber if he remains, though the margin has shrunk.
