A Georgia state House race that Democrats were on the verge of winning has flipped to the Republican incumbent after a memory card holding hundreds of Election Day votes was finally entered into the tally. Republican state Rep. Gerald Greene of Cuthbert trailed Democrat Harry James by 58 votes on election night, a margin that appeared to end his long career in Atlanta. Once Seminole County’s uncounted card was uploaded on Friday, Greene surged into the lead, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has opened an investigation into how the votes were left out of the county’s reporting.
For added context, Seminole County Elections Supervisor Ron Foskey claims: “There was no memory card ‘discovered’, ‘missing’, or ‘found’. All precinct card chain of custody protocols were followed, and all memory cards were accounted for… on Election night.” He does admit that the county’s Election Management System did not finish running the last precinct’s card. Most initial media reports described it as “missing” and the course of things is as yet not fully ascertained, so we have referred to it that way for reader clarity and understanding.
The contest is for House District 154, a seat that stretches across nine counties in the southwest corner of the state. Greene was first elected to the House in 1982 as a Democrat, switched parties after the 2010 election, and has survived increasingly difficult political terrain. James, a former Dougherty County commissioner, ran to complete what looked like a Democratic takeover of the district. The race also carries heavy stakes for control of the House, where Democrats appear on track to claim a majority for the first time in two decades.
The problem surfaced during the state’s routine post-election review, when Raffensperger’s office compared the number of voters who checked in at Seminole County polling places against the number of ballots reported as cast. The check found roughly 388 more check-ins than ballots in the county’s totals. State officials alerted the Seminole County Board of Elections, and the county determined that a memory card containing Election Day results had never been uploaded into its election management system.
Once those results went in, the office announced that Greene had taken a 262-vote lead. As WCTV reported, the secretary of state’s office laid out the sequence in a statement. “Our office identified a significant discrepancy, alerted county officials, and uncovered a failure to properly upload election results. This oversight didn’t just affect the numbers – it changed who was leading an election. That is unacceptable, and we intend to find out exactly how it happened,” the release said. Capitol Beat News Service reported that updated totals on the state’s website showed Greene with 10,193 votes to 9,932 for James.
Raffensperger’s investigators are now examining how the memory card was overlooked, whether required election procedures were followed, and what corrective measures are needed to prevent a repeat. Blake Evans, the secretary of state’s elections director, described how the state flagged the problem in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We contacted the county and they realized that they had missed a memory card,” Evans said.
A Greene victory would rescue one of the Legislature’s most vulnerable Republican incumbents. The Early County News noted in a profile of his four decades in office that Greene is the longest-serving member of the House, a tenure that earned him the title “Dean Greene.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution identified him as the only Republican in the General Assembly representing a majority-Black district. As RedState reported, Greene said he was “in disbelief” and hoped his lead would hold.
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Seminole County’s elections office has since explained what broke down. Elections Supervisor Ron Foskey said all memory cards were accounted for by the county Board of Elections on election night and that chain of custody protocols were followed. “The Election Management System computer did not complete its program for the last precincts memory card. Therefore, the Election Summary Report marked ‘Unofficial and Incomplete’ was just that (unofficial and incomplete),” Foskey told WALB.
Watch WSB-TV’s report on the Seminole County investigation here:
The late reversal could squeeze Democrats before they even take power. Capitol Beat reported that the party appears to have flipped 13 Republican-held seats while losing two of its own, putting it on track for 92 seats in the chamber — one more than the 91 needed to pass legislation. Rep. Mike Cheokas of Americus failed to win a majority in a three-way race and must face Democrat Ethan Wolfe in a December runoff. A Wolfe win would give Democrats a two-seat cushion.
Seminole County officials face a Monday deadline to certify the District 154 results, and Raffensperger’s office says its investigation remains ongoing. Foskey said the final validation step was finished when officials met to certify on Friday. He said the ballots counted, the scanner tape, and the data on the memory cards all matched the county’s 2,911 ballots cast.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.