DONALSONVILLE, Ga. — A memory card left off the Election Day upload in Seminole County has reversed the apparent winner in a southwest Georgia House race and drawn a formal state inquiry.
During routine post-election reviews, state election staff spotted roughly 388 more voters checked in at the polls than ballots shown as cast. The secretary of state’s office warned the Seminole County Board of Elections and traced the gap to results stored on a card that never made it into the county’s election management system.
House District 154 had shown Democrat Harry James ahead of Republican incumbent Gerald Greene by 58 votes. Once the overlooked totals were added, Greene moved in front by 262 votes. Certification had not closed when the error came to light.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said investigators will dig into how the card was missed, whether required steps were skipped, and what fixes will stop a repeat. County leaders must finish certification by Monday under the state timeline.
The district spans a rural stretch of southwest Georgia that includes Seminole County. The late card does not reopen statewide constitutional offices already decided after Tuesday’s midterms, but it shows how one county upload can still swing a legislative margin that was hanging by dozens of votes.
Georgia counties finish canvassing in the week after Election Day before the secretary of state certifies the statewide slate. Raffensperger called the oversight unacceptable because it changed who appeared to be leading, not merely a rounding error in the tallies.
Local boards are expected to document how the card sat out of the system and to tighten night-of procedures that require every scanner card to be read before unofficial results are posted.
Section: More Atlanta GA politics news
Filed under: Atlanta GA Politics News
