Republican state Rep. Gerald Greene moved from an apparent defeat into the lead after officials discovered an overlooked memory card containing election results in southwest Georgia. The additional votes reversed the unofficial outcome of his contest against Democrat Harry James. Greene’s race remains subject to certification, while state officials investigate how the results were left out of the county’s initial reporting.
The contest is for Georgia House District 154, which touches nine counties in the southwestern corner of the state. Greene, a Republican from Cuthbert, was seeking to retain his legislative seat in the November 3rd election. The reporting problem surfaced in Seminole County during the review of election returns, with the discovery announced Friday, November 6th.
James had been ahead by 58 votes before the additional results were included. After the upload, the secretary of state’s office announced that Greene held a 262-vote advantage. That represented a 320-vote swing in the margin between the candidates, enough to put the incumbent ahead as election officials approached their deadline for certifying the county’s returns.
CBS Atlanta reported that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger opened an investigation. His office’s announcement explained that approximately 388 more voters were recorded as checking in at polling places than the county reported ballots cast. State officials alerted the Seminole County Board of Elections, which determined that a memory card had not been uploaded into its election management system. “That is unacceptable, and we intend to find out exactly how it happened,” Raffensperger said.
Blake Evans, the secretary of state’s elections director, described the communication with local officials in reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which covered the discovery. “We contacted the county and they realized that they had missed a memory card,” Evans said. Greene was first elected to the House in 1982 as a Democrat and switched to the Republican Party after the 2010 election. The newspaper identified him as the only Republican in the General Assembly representing a majority-Black district.
The seat also affects the narrow division of power in the Georgia House. The Journal-Constitution reported that, if the reversal stands, Democrats would hold 92 seats in the 180-member chamber, just one seat above the 91 needed for a majority. Another Republican incumbent, Rep. Mike Cheokas of Americus, faces Democrat Ethan Wolfe in a December 1 runoff. Cheokas finished first but fell short of a majority after independent candidate Travis Lockhart received 11% of the vote.
See WCTV’s story on the discovery of the unreported election results HERE:
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Capitol Beat News Service reported a subsequent Friday-night tally showing Greene with 10,193 votes and James with 9,932, a margin of 261. Its Saturday report also indicated Democrats appeared to have flipped 13 other Republican seats. The party remained on track to take control of the chamber for the first time in two decades, despite the apparent reversal in Greene’s district.
Raffensperger’s investigation will examine how the memory card was overlooked and whether county officials followed required election procedures. Investigators will also determine what corrective measures are needed to prevent another omission during the reporting of election results. County election officials have until Monday, November 9th, to certify their results.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.