About 10 days ago the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that there were voting irregularities in Long County, an area west of Savannah, that called into question a tight race for Long County probate judge. The incumbent filed a lawsuit after he apparently lost the race by 9 votes to a challenger. But Jake Evans, the incumbent’s attorney, said seven people had voted twice, some by turning in an absentee ballot and then voting in person. “It’s a crazy story. I don’t even know how it happened. I didn’t even think double-voting was possible,” Evans said.

Today, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that statewide 1,000 Georgians voted twice in the June 9 primary election:

These voters returned absentee ballots and then also showed up to vote on election day June 9, Raffensperger said. County election officials are able to stop double-voting most of the time, but they weren’t able to catch everyone.

“A double voter knows exactly what they’re doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law,” Raffensperger said during a press conference at the state Capitol. “Those that make the choice to game the system are breaking the law. And as secretary of state, I will not tolerate it.”…

Double-voting didn’t change the outcome of any races in the primary, Raffensperger said.

According to Raffensperger, as many as 150,000 people who requested absentee ballots went to the polls on election day. In most cases that was because they never received the ballots they had requested, but in 1,000 cases these individuals had already returned an absentee ballot, which is a felony.

A spokesman for the Democratic Party said, “It is clear that rather than do his job of promoting the safety and security of our voting process, the secretary of state is instead pushing the GOP’s voting conspiracy theories and disinformation.”

During his speech announcing the findings today, Raffensperger suggested that historically only about 5% of votes were cast by absentee ballot but in the recent primary that figure was closer to 50 percent. And as of now, about 900,000 people have requested mail-in ballots for the November election creating a lot of potential for this kind of fraud.

If convicted, people who double vote face a minimum of 1 year in prison. However, Raffensperger said he would be turning over the information he has uncovered to local DAs and to the States Attorney for prosecution. Here’s the full announcement plus a Q&A that followed: