Georgia election officials say scanners caused voting problem

Faulty software or poorly calibrated vote-tabulation scanners used to count mailedin ballots in last week’s chaotic Georgia primary may have prevented thousands of votes from being counted, election officials and voting integrity activists say.

The issue was identified in at least four counties — DeKalb, Morgan, Clarke and Cherokee — according to officials who discovered them, including activists who have sued the state for alleged election mismanagement.

“The fact that it is in multiple counties tells me that it’s probably systemic,” said Richard DeMillo, a Georgia Tech computer scientist who has testified for the plaintiffs, because identical scanners and software were used to count all absentee ballots across the state. DeMillo said the only way to know for sure is through audits.

A top Georgia voting official, voting implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, said Friday that he had seen no evidence yet of the issue and found it difficult to believe the reports were “an active description of what is happening on the ground.”

“These are activists who have an ax to grind,” he said.

Nearly 1.1 million Georgians voted by mail for Tuesday’s primary, which had been delayed twice.