Georgia Republicans Work To Rebuild Election Confidence : NPR - 0 views
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inside the Bartow County, Ga., Senior Center on Tuesday, a dozen teams worked in pairs to do a hand recount of more than 43,000 votes cast in the Jan. 5 runoffs.
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The final margin for the races are outside the threshold for a recount, and the voters in this county an hour northwest of Atlanta are about 75% Republican
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Kirk is a firm believer in transparency and education when it comes to the state's voting system - especially after one of the most secure elections in state history, one that saw record turnout and few reported problems.
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But Georgia was also ground zero for misinformation and attacks on election integrity, led by President Trump and a number of top Republicans in Georgia and beyond.
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Outgoing Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue made last-minute pushes to support a challenge to the Electoral College, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party and other lawmakers backed lawsuits seeking to overturn the state's presidential results and the Republican-led legislature held hearings that promoted false claims of voter fraud and promised to crack down on voting rights.
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The November election saw President Trump lose Georgia by about 12,000 votes and the 5 million ballots cast were counted three times, including a full hand audit required by law.
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Kirk believes audits should happen after every election as a way to help the public trust their votes are counted and verify voting equipment functions correctly.
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In this case, the audit examined the Senate election between former Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic Sen.-elect Jon Ossoff. Ballots were checked by pairs of election workers that audibly read off votes on the page, confirming with their partner before moving to the next one.
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State Election Board member Matt Mashburn stopped by the audit and was pleased with the process but frustrated with fellow Republicans who have spent weeks pushing conspiracies about the election and eroding faith and trust.
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In deep-red Bartow County, many Republicans expressed concerns with 24/7 absentee drop boxes, vote counting and the machines picked by the GOP legislature.
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While fewer members of the public were there to watch the audit than November's vote count, those who were there said it was still an important step in becoming an informed voter.
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n the aftermath of the 2020 election cycle, observing how the electoral sausage gets made isn't just something for skeptical Republicans. Democratic monitor Karen Tindall threw herself into volunteering this year at the age of 71, in part because she wanted to help take partisan politics out of the way our votes are counted.
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"I think we just need to talk about the process and explain it to people because the elections are safe and they are fair,"
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After working for about eight hours, the final margin of error in Bartow County was less than a tenth of percent from the original results - expected, Kirk said, because humans are involved in the counting process that is normally done by machine.
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The audit comes as Georgia's legislature gets back to action, and some Republican lawmakers have promised to crack down on absentee ballots after spending weeks spreading misinformation and false claims of fraud.
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And while some lawmakers floated the idea of removing no-excuse absentee voting enacted by (and primarily used by) Republicans for the last 15 years, Republican House Speaker David Ralston said he would appoint a new bipartisan committee to tackle any changes.