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White County election recount teams began work reviewing presidential ballots Friday morning, Nov. 13. (Photo/Stephanie Hill)
Georgia counties launched a manual recount Friday, Nov. 13, of the nearly 5 million paper ballots cast for the presidential election.
White County began mid-morning as batches of absentee ballots were distributed among six tables, each with a team of two people assigned to review ballots. County Elections Superintendent Garrison Baker said he plans for absentees to be counted Friday, followed by advance in-person ballots on Monday and Election Day ballots from the county's 11 precincts on Tuesday.
Baker said he was pleased how the process was going early on.
"It's a historic time, and these people are doing a good job," he told the White County News.
Roughly 15,000 ballots were cast in White County for the Nov. 3 election, with nearly 7,900 voting advance in-person, almost 4,000 on Election Day and roughly 3,000 by absentee.
President Donald Trump won more than 80% of the vote in White County, though he trailed former Vice President Joe Biden by just over 14,000 votes statewide.
Only votes for presidential candidates are being reviewed. Along with elections staff, the recount is open to observers.
(Additional coverage will be included in the Nov. 19 issue of the White County News.)