State senate recount on Monday, Hall claims ballot mishandling

HIAWASSEE, Ga – Georgia State Senate District 50 recount will occur on Monday, August 31, across all eight counties.

The recount will include all ballots from the August 11 runoff with counties beginning at 9 a.m. District 50 includes Franklin, Habersham, Towns, Rabun, Stephens, and Banks counties and parts of Hall and Jackson counties.
Secretary of State certified the runoff election on August 26 with Habersham attorney Bo Hatchett winning 12,492 (50.07%) votes to Stacy Hall’s 12,455 (49.93%). The 37-vote (.16 percent) difference fell within the less than one half of one percent of the total votes cast margin needed to Hall to request a recount.

“Under O.C.G.A. § 21-2-495, a recount can be requested by the second-place candidate if the difference in votes between the winning candidate and second-place candidate is not more than 0.5% of the total votes cast in the race.” – Secretary of State release. 

In Hall’s official request issued on August 26 to the Secretary of State, he cited the Georgia code and asserted absentee ballots’ mishandling in Stephens County.

“I can confirm that many voters who requested absentee ballots never received them while others received absentee ballots as late as Monday prior to the election, making it impossible to meet the deadline. Many of these voters were elderly or had medical conditions and were either advised not to vote in-person due to COVID or were not physically able to,” Hall’s request read.

Hall asks the Secretary of State to take immediate action into the matter of “disenfranchised voters” who couldn’t practice their right to vote due to extenuating circumstances.

Towns County Sheriff’s race also had a request for a recount, which will take place at the same time.