Dominion voting machine server crash causes delay in Georgia recount

The third count of presidential votes in Georgia hit a snag Sunday when a server maintained by Dominion voting machines — which have become a point of controversy — crashed in Fulton County after about 88% of the votes had been recounted. Officials in Georgia say that the count will resume on Monday morning and expect the recount to be completed by the deadline of Dec. 2.

Everything that happens with Dominion voting machines has become the subject of intense scrutiny after glitches in Michigan appeared to reverse the totals in initial reporting between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Many conservatives on social media — including the president and his legal team — have cast doubt on the security of the machines.

According to Fox News, election officials notified the outlet of the unspecified problem with a newly deployed mobile server on Sunday night and indicated that technicians had been dispatched to resolve the issue.

The current tally in Georgia shows President Trump trailing Biden by about 13,000 votes, but the Trump legal team has challenged the results and has sharply criticized Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for failing to do enough to challenge the results of the election, which Raffensperger in particular has strongly stood behind. The Trump campaign has additionally requested (and obtained) multiple recounts of the results in Georgia. The campaign claims that the previous recount's failure to include signature matching (which the state says is now impossible since envelopes have been discarded per usual procedure when ballots are opened) renders the results of these recounts suspect.

Dominion has aggressively denied that its machines either were or have been tampered with in Georgia or any other state. The company has also encouraged workers to work from home and to hide their social media profiles because they claim that their workers have been subjected to "persistent harassment and threats against personal safety" due to the scrutiny of the election results.

Last week, a spokesman for Dominion stated that it was "physically impossible" to alter votes in the Dominion system and noted that whenever someone casts a vote on a Dominion machine, it produces a paper receipt that is kept by the county. "If any electronic interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically would not match the printed ballots, and in every case where we've looked at — in Georgia, all across the country — the printed ballot, the gold standard in election security, has matched the electronic tally," the spokesman said.