False claim Georgia governor's office acknowledged invalid ballots counted in 2020 | Fact check

The claim: Georgia governor’s office notified secretary of state of more than 17,000 invalid ballots counted in 2020

A Dec. 15 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claims Georgia officials have reported major ballot irregularities from the 2020 election.

“BREAKING: Georgia Gov. (Brian) Kemp’s legal staff has notified Ga Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that 17,852 invalid 2020 votes were counted in Fulton County, GA, alone,” reads the post.

It was shared more than 200 times in six days. Another version of the claim was shared more than 16,000 times on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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Our rating: False

Georgia officials have made no such admission. The governor's office sent a letter in 2022 notifying the secretary of state about a resident's complaint that referenced 17,000 votes. But the governor's office didn't repeat or support the assertion. Election officials said the resident's complaint was unfounded.

Error caught in tabulation process, corrected for final tally

Fulton County has been a hotbed of false claims of election fraud since 2020, when President Joe Biden won the state by 11,779 votes. Former President Donald Trump faces 13 charges related to an alleged plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Georgia secretary of state spokesperson Mike Hassinger said there is “no validity” to the newest claim.

Hassinger provided USA TODAY with a copy of the three-sentence July 2022 letter, which said a Georgia resident “brought forth claims regarding the 2020 general election.” 

It goes on to say the complaint was being forwarded to the secretary of state’s office because the governor’s office “does not have the authority to investigate election matters.” There is no reference to the supposedly invalid votes in the letter, though they are in the resident's complaint.

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Hassinger said the claim is a “recycled version of an old complaint” and stems from an error that was caught and corrected in the 2020 counting process.

Fulton County counted its ballots on election night, as well as during an audit and recount. The first two counts matched, but the recount differed by approximately 17,000 ballots because the county used the same name on two batch files, Hassinger said.

The county submitted the erroneous number to the secretary of state's office, which caught the mistake. The county fixed the error and submitted the corrected tabulation to the state.

“A large part of the entire election process is devoted to detecting and correcting errors,” Hassinger said. “This would normally enhance trust in the process and results, but the conspiracy theorists’ cottage industry of election denial requires them to seize on one part of the process − an error − and twist it until it suits their needs while ignoring the full truth − the error was detected and corrected.” 

Kemp’s press secretary, Garrison Douglas, referred USA TODAY to Kemp adviser Cody Hall’s statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the claim.

“Retelling the same lies for three years does not make them true, even when citing bogus online blogs,” Hall told the outlet. “The moon landing was real, Bigfoot does not roam the forests of North America, and the 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen.” 

Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state's office, also described the claim as “lies” in a Dec. 18 X post. 

USA TODAY has debunked an array of claims surrounding elections in Georgia, including that a lawsuit discovered thousands of duplicate ballots were found in Fulton County, that Georgia is Democrats’ test site for 2024 “private takeover of election offices” and that Trump had Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis impeached. 

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Lead Stories and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim. 

Our fact-check sources:

• Garrison Douglas, Dec. 20, Email exchange with USA TODAY 
• Mike Hassinger, Dec. 19, Email exchange with USA TODAY 
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dec. 18, PG A.M.: Trump loyalists resurrect debunked Georgia election fraud claims 
• Gabriel Sterling, Dec. 18, X post 

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