Georgia’s secretary of state said Tuesday that an audit of voting machines was completed with no signs of foul play.
Brad Raffensperger said voting systems testing company Pro V&V conducted the audit and “found no evidence of the machines being tampered.”
“We are glad but not surprised that the audit of the state’s voting machines was an unqualified success,” the Republican said in a statement. “Election security has been a top priority since day one of my administration. We have partnered with the Department of Homeland Security, the Georgia Cyber Center, Georgia Tech security experts, and a wide range of other election security experts around the state and country so Georgia voters can be confident that their vote is safe and secure.”
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has certified the Alabama-based Pro V&V testing laboratory, officials said. The company also received support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Georgia uses machines from Dominion Voting Systems.
Pro V&V conducted the audit on a random sample of voting machines throughout the state using forensic techniques. In-person ballot scanners, ballot marking devices, and absentee ballot scanners were all subject to the audit.
Pro V&V found that all software and firmware on the sampled machines was verified to be certified by the office of the secretary of state.
“Coupled with the risk-limiting audit of all paper ballots relying solely on the printed text of the ballots, these steps confirm the assessment of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that there are no signs of cyber attacks or election hacking,” Raffensperger’s office stated.
Gabriel Sterling with Raffensperger’s office told reporters Tuesday when asked about concerns regarding the voting machines that a recount that’s happening will include verifying “that the scanners put out results that are based on the human readable portions of the ballots, which helps to quell some of those wild claims that machines were flipping votes and they weren’t counting votes properly.”
Raffensperger told reporters on the day after the election that the risk-limiting audit would verify results with a 90 percent confidence level.
Georgia officials have struggled to instill confidence in some voters. Three counties this week disclosed uncounted ballots during a statewide recount, though Raffensperger’s office has insisted the situations were a result of human error, not malfeasance or software errors.
Dominion in a statement said that its systems weren’t responsible for the uncounted ballots found in Floyd County.
“Human errors related to reporting tabulated results have arisen in a few counties, including some using Dominion equipment, but appropriate procedural actions have been taken by the county to address these errors were made prior to the canvass process,” it said.
Trump’s campaign highlighted the uncounted ballots, saying in a statement that Georgia “must not certify its results until the recount is done accurately and the results are correct.”
Trump attacked Raffensperger over the weekend, calling him “a so-called Republican (RINO),” a term that stands for “Republican in name only.”
Raffensperger hit back, telling WSB-TV that Trump “suppressed his own voting base” by disparaging voting by mail.
