Gabriel Sterling
Role at the time: Former chief operating officer and deputy secretary of state in the Georgia Secretary of State's office, replying on X
Response to this claim
The Seminole County Board of Elections did not upload a memory card containing Election Day results into the county's election management system, leaving about 388 ballots out of the county's reported count until the Secretary of State's office flagged the gap.
“This election in Georgia and nationwide was the smoothest, most well run one likely ever. This issue was discovered in canvassing which is in part why it is done to get to certification. There are over 10,000 election jurisdictions, with nearly 30k polling locations. In GA, nearly 2,600. This was a single memory card. It was a close election. Humans again are always the weakest parts of the system. That is training people and robust processes are so necessary. The outcome is what the voters intended and that is the most important point here.”
Why we used this label
The reference point is Seminole County's handling of its November 3, 2026 Election Day count, which left about 388 ballots out of the reported results until the Secretary of State's office flagged the gap on November 6. Sterling acknowledges a human error in the county's count but downplays it as a single memory card in a well-run election that canvassing caught, and says the corrected outcome reflects voters' intent.