Read on Twitter
There's a lot of confusion over what GA is doing, and whether it's going to be a full hand recount. The short answer is: it won't officially be called that, but the Secretary of State has found a way to shoehorn a full hand recount into a previously-planned post-election audit.
The longer version, as best I can tell: as this thread tries to explain, risk-limiting audits are a normal part of the election process, but they're usually based on a sampling of ballots. https://twitter.com/KimZetter/status/1326549391075799041
The problem for the Georgia SoS is that Georgia state law doesn't permit hand recounts except in certain very limited circumstances. BUT since this audit was already scheduled, why let an opportunity go to waste?
The audit can be based on any particular election; the SoS chose the presidential. The audit can be based on a sample of ballots, but there's no limit on how large that sample is. So the SoS chose all of them.
And, boom. you have yourself a full hand recount of the presidential election, under the guise of a risk-limiting audit. That's what's happening here. The confusion you're seeing play out in the media, even among folks who know this stuff well, is by design.
so while tweets like these are technically correct that an audit was planned before the election, they are wrong that what's actually being done isn't "something else" https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1326554230975393793
And, of course, the stupid thing about this is we're probably going to get all the drama & legal battles of the 2000 Florida recount, for absolutely no reason because the GA electoral votes won't make a difference. Which very well may be the perfect capstone on the Trump era.
This is the interesting question I don't know the answer to - since it technically isn't a recount, it's just an "audit," I'm not sure if it can prevent the state from certifying the results, or even actually change the vote totals. https://twitter.com/jamesggilmore/status/1326576487139577857
