CHATHAM COUNTY, Ga. (WSAV) - The Chatham County Board of Elections certified the "official and complete" results for the Nov. 5 election on Tuesday after ballot counting issues on election night.
The board confirmed there was a record turnout of voters in Chatham this cycle, totaling over 140,000.
However, the makeup of the turnout was not exactly what election officials were expecting.
"I thought we would have maybe 50,000 vote early and maybe 75,000 on election day. That's what we prepared for," Chatham County Elections Director, Billy Wooten, said.
Over 90,000 people voted early this election cycle.
That's why there was a significant delay when several SD cards containing early votes couldn't be tabulated and had to be re-entered.
"The registrars were having early voting and didn't close down their scanners, and that resulted in the cards - there were votes on the cards, we could all see those cards, the tabulating system could see those votes, but they were not, after we put them all in," Tom Mahoney, the Chairman of the Chatham County Board of Elections, said. "They were not accepted because the tabulating system didn't know the election had ended."
There were also over 10,000 absentee ballots, a portion of which the board said couldn't be tabulated until election night because they were delivered last minute.
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"Another thing that's difficult to anticipate, just because the registrar sends out a lot of absentee ballots, how many are they going to receive back? And how many are they going to receive back by the close of the polls on election day?" Mahoney questioned.
In fact, workers had to come back the next day to finish tabulating, putting Chatham well past the state's deadline for counting mail in votes.
Once that was done, unofficial election results were considered complete.
"Every time you have an election, something goes wrong, and you learn from it, and you move on, and we're doing that. So, we don't expect that same error to occur," Mahoney said.
According to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the Chatham County Board of Elections could potentially face fines for the ballot counting issues, but he couldn't elaborate because the investigation is ongoing.
The board has 30 days to file their final reconciliation report with the state.
