By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – November 11, 2020

Raising the stakes further is that Georgia is set to hold two Senate runoff elections in January, which will decide which party controls the upper chamber. Senate control will determine the national policy direction for the next two years. Georgia should be assured, going into that political maelstrom, that its new election systems are functioning as designed.

Doing a full audit by hand is more than Georgia law requires. It’s unlikely to swing the state into Donald Trump’s column, since overcoming his 14,000-vote deficit would require the discovery of serious errors that have so far escaped detection. In any case, Mr. Biden would still have the required 270 Electoral College votes, unless his even-larger margins in Pennsylvania or other states were also somehow overturned.

Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, emphasized that his office is ready to look into every allegation of voting shenanigans. “If you have any information about illegal voting or voter fraud, bring that to our attention,” he said. “We will investigate every case that we hear.” If Georgia’s painstaking recount doesn’t substantiate claims of major fraud, Americans will be more confident the election was conducted fairly.

The recount also might ease concerns about Georgia’s new voting machines. The system, which made its statewide debut this year, allows voters to make their choices on a touch-screen. Then a printer spits out a ballot with a summary that shows, in writing, the candidates selected, so the voter can review them. The same information is translated and printed in a two-dimensional bar code that scanners can read.

When the state picked this system, advocates of hand-marked ballots objected. They argued in a lawsuit that the text summary would give voters no way to “visually review and confirm whether the bar code accurately conveys their intended selections.” It sounds like a plot from a bad thriller movie: ballots coming out of a printer that say they’re for one candidate, while sneaking another candidate into the bar code?

As one reassurance, officials typically choose a statistical sample of paper ballots to audit by hand. In this case, Mr. Raffensperger has chosen to audit the entire presidential count. “With the margin being so close, it will require a full, by hand recount in each county,” he explained. “This will help build confidence. It will be an audit, a recount and a recanvass all at once.”

There’s no reason not to let the process play out. The odds seem small that the preliminary vote tallies will be overturned in enough states to give Mr. Trump a second term in the White House. But if the law allows him to ask for recounts in states where he trails only narrowly, then doing so is his prerogative. Georgia’s intent is to have a final result ready to certify on Nov. 20, as originally scheduled. Keep calm and count on.

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Source: Georgia’s Reassuring Vote Recount – WSJ