Raffensperger: No fraud found in Cobb Co. ballot signature audit

ATLANTA (WALB) - A ballot signature match audit in Cobb County found “no fraudulent absentee ballots,” and confirmed the “original outcome” of the November 2020 presidential race, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a Tuesday release.

Raffensperger said this audit came after a hand recount and then a subsequent machine recount requested by the Trump campaign.

“The secretary of state’s office has always been focused on calling balls and strikes in elections and, in this case, three strikes against the voter fraud claims and they’re out,” said Raffensperger. “We conducted a statewide hand recount that reaffirmed the initial tally, and a machine recount at the request of the Trump campaign that also reaffirmed the original tally. This audit disproves the only credible allegations the Trump campaign had against the strength of Georgia’s signature match processes.”

On Dec. 14, Raffensperger announced a signature match audit in Cobb County following credible allegations that the process was not followed in the June primaries. Raffensperger’s office partnered with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct the audit.

“Of the 150,431 absentee ballots received by Cobb County elections officials during the November elections, the audit ‘reviewed 15,118 ABM ballot oath envelopes from randomly selected boxes,’ or around 10% of the total,” the release states. “The sample size was originally chosen to meet the 99 percent confidence threshold.”

The audit found “no fraudulent absentee ballots” with a 99 percent confidence threshold, the release states.

The audit found that only two ballots should have been identified by Cobb County elections officials for cure notification that weren’t.

“In one case, the ballot was ‘mistakenly signed by the elector’s spouse,’ and in the other, the voter ‘reported signing the front of the envelope only,’” the release states. “In both cases, the identified voters filled out the ballots themselves.”

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