Sec. of State provides more details on upcoming signature audits

ATLANTA - The University of Georgia's School of Public and International Affairs will help the state perform a statewide audit on absentee ballot signatures from the November election.  

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the new partnership during a news conference at the State Capitol Wednesday.

"This team will work to restore faith in the process and put these rumors to bed once and for all," Sec. Raffensperger explained.  

Raffensperger reiterated that election workers must check a voter's signature on both their absentee ballot application and their absentee ballot envelope before their ballot is counted.  However, he said they will perform a signature audit in Cobb County beginning next week.

"We've had a specific allegation that this process wasn't followed in one county--Cobb.  As part of an investigation into that, we are doing a signature audit in Cobb of their November ballots first," Raffensperger said.  

Investigators from the Secretary of State's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation will be part of the effort.

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According to Gabriel Sterling, statewide voting system implementation manager, they plan to have 20 teams of 2 people work 12-hour shifts to get through all the absentee envelopes.  

 "It's going to take a lot of coordination," Sterling explained.  "We're sitting there having to figure out how we're going to pay for meals, who's going to bring them in, who's going to shift these guys out, how do we track all this stuff.  It's a system of putting it all together.  So, we're going through that process right now."  

There is no timeline yet for when the statewide audit will begin.  

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