The third count of presidential votes in Georgia hit a snag
Sunday when a server maintained by Dominion voting machines —
which have become a point of controversy —
crashed in Fulton County after about 88% of the votes had been
recounted. Officials in Georgia say that the count will resume on
Monday morning and expect the recount to be completed by the
deadline of Dec. 2.
Everything that happens with Dominion voting machines has become
the subject of intense scrutiny after glitches in Michigan appeared
to reverse the totals in initial reporting between President Trump
and former Vice President Joe Biden. Many conservatives on social
media — including the president and his legal team — have cast
doubt on the security of the machines.
According to
Fox News, election officials notified the outlet of the
unspecified problem with a newly deployed mobile server on Sunday
night and indicated that technicians had been dispatched to resolve
the issue.
The current tally in Georgia shows President Trump trailing
Biden by about 13,000 votes, but the Trump legal team has
challenged the results and has sharply criticized Republican Gov.
Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for failing to
do enough to challenge the results of the election, which
Raffensperger in particular has strongly stood behind. The Trump
campaign has additionally requested (and obtained) multiple
recounts of the results in Georgia. The campaign claims that the
previous recount’s failure to include signature matching (which the
state says is now impossible since envelopes have been discarded
per usual procedure when ballots are opened) renders the results of
these recounts suspect.
Dominion has aggressively denied that its
machines either were or have been tampered with in Georgia or any
other state. The company has also encouraged workers to work from
home and to hide their social media profiles because they claim
that their workers have been subjected to “persistent harassment
and threats against personal safety” due to the scrutiny of the
election results.
Last week, a
spokesman for Dominion stated that it was “physically
impossible” to alter votes in the Dominion system and noted that
whenever someone casts a vote on a Dominion machine, it produces a
paper receipt that is kept by the county. “If any electronic
interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically
would not match the printed ballots, and in every case where we’ve
looked at — in Georgia, all across the country — the printed
ballot, the gold standard in election security, has matched the
electronic tally,” the spokesman said.
