A Statement by DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond

This morning a serious allegation about a “9,626 vote error in the DeKalb County hand count” was made on social media by David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. I immediately conducted a preliminary inquiry into the accuracy of his unsubstantiated tweet. 

Below, I share the results of my inquiry.

• DeKalb County Voter Registration and Elections officials have not verified the allegation in the tweet by Chairman Shafer, that a “vote error” occurred during the state-mandated risk-limiting audit in DeKalb.

• Based on Chairman Shafer’s Twitter storm, the alleged “vote error” was discovered, reported to DeKalb elections officials and corrected prior to the transmission of the official audit report to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.

• If the scenario occurred as Chairman Shafer alleges, this is evidence that the checks and balances, established by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ensure the accuracy of the election results, performed as designed.