Seminole County flips House race outcome

The deadline as Georgia continues to certify their election results, but as local election boards finalize their vote totals, state officials announced that they've wrapped up their investigation into a vote counting discrepancy in Seminole County. That discrepancy reversed the apparent outcome of a close statehouse race. Fox has Deidre Dukes live for us this evening from the state capitol with more on what went wrong and what happens next. Deidre. That's right, Tom. The new developments coming this afternoon with the Secretary of State's office confirming that it has closed that investigation, noting that the memory card, they say, was there all along, that it was overlooked, not missing. Seminole County has now certified its results, including the votes in question. In Georgia House District 154, Democrat Harry James initially appeared to defeat Republican incumbent Gerald Green by 58 votes on election night. But during a routine post-election review, state officials discovered a discrepancy of approximately 388 votes, not reflected in the totals. A memory card had failed to upload into the election system. Once county officials processed those votes, Greene took a 262-vote lead. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has launched an investigation into the oversight. In a written statement released Friday, he stated, quote, Georgia's election safeguards are designed to identify discrepancies, and that is exactly what these guardrails did. Our office identified a significant discrepancy, alerted county officials, and uncovered a failure to properly upload election results. You know, some of the most important work we do happens after election night. Bartow County Election Supervisor Joseph Kirk explains how post-election canvassing catches these mistakes before certification. We go through a canvassing process, make sure everything checks out. We didn't neglect county votes. We didn't count anything we shouldn't have. Oh, and that's why I see results change. going into certification. State investigators are now examining how the memory card was overlooked in Seminole County as county election boards across Georgia finalized their certified totals Monday. This oversight didn't just affect the numbers, Raffensperger noted. It changed who was leading an election. That is unacceptable and we intend to find out exactly how it happened. And again, the Secretary of State's office confirming this afternoon that they have concluded their investigation that Seminole County's results are now certified. As for the state, the state has until November 20th to complete its certification process. At the state capitol, Deidre Dukes, Fox 5 News. All right, Deidre, thanks.