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Georgia recount: How much difference would 2600 uncounted votes have made to election results? 'Trump still lost'

Georgia started recounting its nearly 5 million ballots by hand on Friday, November 13

More than 2,600 ballots in Georgia’s Floyd County that have not been recorded were recently discovered during a recount in the state for the 2020 presidential election, according to reports. Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger blamed the problem on Floyd County election officials failing to upload votes from a memory card in a ballot-scanning machine.

Georgia started recounting its nearly 5 million ballots by hand on Friday, November 13 after President Donald Trump and the Republican Party requested a statewide audit. 

The 2,600 previously unrecorded ballots in the county marked the most significant issue so far uncovered in the recount process. Floyd County Republican Party chair Luke Martin labeled the mishap “concerning” but emphasized that it “doesn’t appear to be a widespread issue," as he told Atlanta-Journal Constitution, “I’m glad the audit revealed it, and it’s important that all votes are counted."

Other states so far have not found any uncounted ballots, with recount figures closely matching their original numbers, Raffensperger said. Though President Trump has criticized alleged voter fraud, the accounted ballots will likely do little to close the 14,000-vote gap with President-Elect Joe Biden.

Gabriel Sterling of the Secretary of State’s office told WSB-TV that the newly found ballots will hand Trump an additional 800 votes, which still leaves Biden in the lead. At a Monday, November 15 evening news conference, Sterling called for Floyd County’s elections director to step down.

“The secretary of, since this was such an amazing blunder and they had issues in August, would like to see that elections director in Floyd County step down from his position,” Sterling said. The states' 159 counties and thousands of county and poll workers have a deadline of Wednesday, November 18 at midnight to complete the recount. 

As soon as the news of the newly found ballots made their way to social media, people started reacting to it, as one Internet use said, "They are having an audit...duh Trump gained 800 votes... He's still down over 13,000." While another one suggested, "Or, and hear me out, rectify the human error by counting the additional votes and adding them to the overall tally."

Pointing out at Trump, another one said, "He loses without Georgia. He loses with Georgia. He LOST." While another one wrote, "Trump gained 800 votes. If you consider that a “vast” majority, then I hear the high school is putting on a play and they’re looking for someone to fill the role of drama queen. You just might qualify"

Republican Jenny Beth Martin wrote, "BREAKING: Hand recount revealed that an election official in Floyd County, Georgia did not upload nearly 2600 votes from a memory card into the scanning machine. A large majority of these votes were for President Trump. GA must have a full audit." To which one replied, saying, "Out of 150 million votes, you're bound to find some mistakes, but isolated mistakes does not a conspiracy make. There's no way that any amount of recounts, will change the election result."

Slamming Trump, another one said, "800 votes is not an overwhelming number. It's still means Trump lost, but by a fraction less than originally stated. Apparently the orange marshmallow is just interested in proving that people still chose Biden over him." Another one contently tweeted, "During the Georgia recount, they found about 2600 ballots that weren’t included in the original election totals, most of which went to Trump. That’s a good thing. We said we wanted every vote counted, and I’m glad that’s happening."