On Wednesday, a significant hearing took place within the Georgia State Election Board. It allowed Joe Rossi to address issues raised in SEB Complaint 2023-025, a document that has drawn considerable attention. The prior hearing in May 2024 did not give Rossi or his co-author Kevin Moncla a chance to respond to a report from the Secretary of State’s office. This time, the situation was different.
Rossi’s complaint centered on the startling claim that 3,125 ballots were duplicates added to the final machine count on December 4, 2020. During his testimony, he indicated that the number has since risen to 3,900, a figure he attributed to findings from the Department of Justice’s investigation, which he noted is already in progress. He stressed that the way these duplicate ballots were processed suggests it wasn’t merely “human error.” Rossi’s comments included an analysis of how ballots were shuffled in a manner that obscured these duplications. A video excerpt captures this moment, posing a crucial question: “Does this look like ‘human error’ or ‘just a mistake’?”
Further complicating the picture, Rossi reported discovering an additional 6,961 ballots in Fulton County that had been double- or triple-counted during a hand recount on November 16, 2020. This discovery was corroborated by Governor Brian Kemp’s office in November 2021, which prompted official correspondence to the Secretary of State. Fulton County officials and the Secretary of State had consistently denied any inconsistencies, defending their three recounts that met expectations.
However, during the SEB hearing, Rossi unveiled an email from Michael Prendergast of the Elections Group. This email, sent to Deputy Elections Director Nadine Williams and then-Elections Director Richard Barron just days after the hand count, highlighted “multiple errors in the hand-count/audit results” that aligned with those Rossi had already documented. Barron had previously reached out to another member of the Elections Group after noticing a discrepancy in the second machine count reported on December 3, 2020. Originally, the count was approximately 511,000 votes, a figure that fell short of the earlier reported 528,000. Interestingly, that count was corrected overnight with the addition of 16,198 votes.
The content of Prendergast’s November 19 email is alarming. It confirmed significant errors in the hand-count/audit that were never amended. Notably, the findings showed that 6,691 fictitious votes were included in the audit results, and critical issues were concealed by Fulton County officials. These officials were aware of discrepancies immediately following the conclusion of the November 3 election.
One cannot overlook the serious ramifications of these findings, particularly in light of the criminal charges facing President Trump and others in a racketeering case related to challenges of the election results. While Fulton County faced scrutiny for its handling of the election, discrepancies were also reported in other counties, including Floyd, Douglas, Fayette, and Walton. These counties showed excess ballots that ultimately benefitted President Trump during the original election count.
This line of inquiry raises important questions. If discrepancies had been addressed timely in the November election, would Georgia have avoided the run-off election on January 5, 2021? Would the election machinery itself have faced more rigorous examination had Fulton County acknowledged the irregularities early on? The potential impact of these electoral errors continues to resonate in current discussions about election integrity.
Rossi’s disclosures not only challenge the official narratives surrounding the 2020 election but also insert the notion of accountability into the wider debate about electoral practices in Georgia. The implications of these findings could reshape how elections are validated moving forward.
"*" indicates required fields
