ATLANTA — President Trump on Monday retweeted a Newsmax interview with Georgia’s 10th District Representative Jody Hice, claiming a Fulton County vote scanning issue would result in more votes for the president.
The congressman claimed 11Alive (WXIA-TV) as his source for the information he shared, and that President Trump retweeted.
QUESTION:
Is the video Trump tweeted about a Fulton County re-scan report accurate?
ANSWER:
No, that claim is false.
EXPLANATION:
In a Newsmax interview the president retweeted Monday night, Rep. Jody Hice said, “Fulton County just came out just within the last hour or so recognizing that they have a significant issue on reporting that they did on Friday. WXIA, the NBC television affiliate, is already saying that this is significantly going to change the count in favor of President Trump.”
There was no such report from 11Alive (WXIA-TV).
On Saturday, 11Alive reported that Georgia’s Secretary of State was monitoring an issue with the scanning of ballots in Fulton County.
According to 11Alive's reporting, the Secretary of State said some ballots "were not captured" in the Friday night results and a smaller number were not scanned. Out of an abundance of caution, all provisional, military and Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act ballots scanned on Friday were to be rescanned.
In reference to how this would would impact the numbers, 11Alive Chief Investigator Brendan Keefe tweeted Saturday, “breaking development may significantly affect the current Biden lead in Georgia.” Keefe added, “we don’t know how many ballots are in question, or which way they would change the count.”
At no time did Keefe or 11Alive report that it was, “going to change the count in favor of President Trump,” as Rep. Hice claimed.
By Sunday, the re-scan of ballots had been completed under supervision of the Republican Secretary of State and observers from both political parties. According to the Fulton County Elections Board Director Richard Barron, 342 ballots were rescanned.
He added that all of the impacted ballot counts from Friday were pulled and replaced with the newly rescanned file.
Keefe reported Sunday, “it appears to have been resolved, resulting in more net votes for Joe Biden than before the scanning issue. Current Biden lead in Georgia is 10,196.”
During all of 11Alive's reporting it was made clear that there was no fraud suspected at the county level or by the Republican Secretary of State who oversaw the recount.
When the president tweeted the video with the misinformation, Twitter labeled it with a warning, “this claim about election fraud is disputed.”
