Fulton County Ballots Unread Due to Scanner Failures; Rescan Approved
Fulton County faces unread ballots due to scanner issues, with rescan approved for tonight.
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Fulton County officials have announced plans to rescan approximately 1,069 early ballots after scanner failures left them unread. Elections Director Brenda Williams is seeking approval from the county election board for a modified counting process at tonight’s 6:30 p.m. meeting.
In a November 3 memo, Williams detailed two incidents that caused the issues. The first occurred on October 21 at the Mechanicsville Library early-voting site, where a scanner lost power after 361 ballots had already been scanned. After the machine restarted, it would no longer operate, and state voting systems staff advised against uploading its memory cards due to potential data corruption. Williams proposes rescanning all 361 paper ballots on a central scanner.
The second incident happened on October 26 at the Hugh C. Conley Recreation Center, where a scanner repeatedly displayed a paper-jam error despite staff finding no actual jam. She reports that 708 ballots were affected. Fulton plans to transfer the original memory cards to another scanner to complete the closeout, with a full paper rescan of those 708 ballots only if the transfer fails.
If the board approves the plan, Williams estimates the work will begin between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m., after polls close. Staff will announce the start in the public observation area at the Fulton County Election Hub & Operations Center, and the process will be visible to the public.
🚨 GEORGIA: The RNC is on it in Fulton County. We will have extra observers present to monitor the tabulation of ballots affected by the scanner issues.
The Republican National Committee has already responded, stating it will station extra observers to monitor the tabulation of the affected ballots. This Georgia County has a documented history of tabulation and documentation problems. County officials have previously acknowledged failures to sign tabulator tapes covering hundreds of thousands of early votes in the 2020 election, and state investigations have examined double-scanning and batch-management issues during the recount.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
