Georgia officials to conduct limited signature match audit in Cobb County, results won’t affect Biden win

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) ordered an audit of voter signatures on absentee ballots in Cobb County on Monday, a move that will have no effect on the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia.

According to Raffensperger, allegations that the signature-matching process in Cobb County had not been done properly were received by his office. Raffensperger said at a press conference he may also order a statewide audit, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The audit in Cobb County will take two weeks, the paper reported, and may be able to show if signatures on absentee ballot-envelopes match signatures kept on file. However the newspaper noted that signatures cannot be matched to ballots after envelopes have been opened.

Apart from complaints from President Trump and his supporters, there has been no indication of problems with absentee ballot signature verification, according to the Journal-Constitution.

The paper noted that the rate of absentee ballots rejected due to mismatching or missing signatures remained the same, about 0.15 percent.

On Nov. 20, Raffensperger certified the results of the election, making Biden’s win official in the state.

Previous audits conducted by the state revealed no evidence of voter fraud, though flaws in the voting system were uncovered such as thousands of ballots that had gone unscanned. A hand recount ordered by Raffensperger did not change the results of the election either, maintaining Biden’s lead over Trump in the state.

Early voting for the Georgia Senate runoff races began Monday with more than 1 million absentee ballots requested. The election between Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, will take place on Jan. 5. The outcome of those elections will determine which party controls the Senate.