A federal judge’s order that Georgia counties include absentee ballots rejected due to missing or incorrect dates of birth in their vote totals won’t change Bryan County’s results, the county’s top elections official said Thursday.
“I am happy to report that we did not reject any (ballots),” said Cindy Reynolds, county elections supervisor, in an email.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones on Wednesday ordered Georgia Secretary of State Robin Crittenden to ensure all of the state’s certified election results included absentee ballots “where the date of birth was omitted or incorrect,” according to a press release from Crittenden’s office.
County election officials have until 6 p.m. Friday to confirm their counts with the secretary of state’s office, according to the press release. The order came after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams filed suit contesting some votes were not counted. Her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, was the state’s chief elections officer until he resigned after results showed he won a narrow victory over Abrams in the Nov. 6 election.
Kemp received 50.23 percent of the more than 3.9 million votes cast in the midterm, but his lead over Abrams is only about 54,000 votes, according to unofficial election results.
Democrats claim some ballots weren’t counted and are hoping that enough will be found to lower Kemp’s total to less than 50 percent and force a runoff.
Kemp won Bryan County handily, getting more than 70 percent of the 14,985 ballots cast. But Abrams actually got more votes by absentee ballot, outpolling her opponent 348-232. In fact, Democrats got more absentee ballot votes than their Republican opponents in every race they ran.
Republicans, on the other hand, won the provisional ballot race in Bryan going away. Fifteen provisional ballots were cast. Only two were for Democratic candidates.
Overall, 15,019 of the county’s 25,712 registered voters participated in the midterm election.
Kemp, who has claimed victory despite Abrams’ refusal to concede, hailed the ruling by Jones, which denied a request by Abrams to count “out-of-county provisional ballots.”
Both candidates stumped in Richmond Hill during the election.