The secretary of state’s office now says that after comparing absentee and early voting records against voter check-in data on election day, it has found 1,042 people in 119 counties who voted twice.

The probe is in its early stages — it could last months and maybe years — and investigators have yet to question voters and poll workers to find out what happened. But election records suggest something went wrong in handfuls of cases across most Georgia counties.

“It’s pretty clear that there were double-voters,” Sterling said. “Any time we see the potential for double-voting, it’s going to be investigated because a vote diluted is a vote denied. You’re hurting the rights of everybody else who follows the rules.”

It appears many double-voters might have cast in-person ballots because they thought their absentee ballots wouldn’t count.

Some voters who had returned absentee ballots showed up on election day because their absentee ballots hadn’t yet been acknowledged as having been received by the county on the state’s My Voter Page. How many is unclear, and Sterling said that will be part of the investigation.

Poll workers were supposed to prevent double-voting by calling county election offices before allowing those who had requested absentee ballots to vote in person. That process broke down in the election day chaos of long lines, stressed poll workers and busy phone lines

Double-voting fraud cases are difficult to prove. That’s especially true for voters who say they didn’t mean to violate the law, said Jake Evans, chairman of the Elections Competence Task Force that the state Republican Party recently formed to recommend changes to state elections rules.

“From a fraud perspective," he said, "there’s always a way to explain it away and try to create an excuse.”

Evans, who is also an attorney for a candidate seeking a new election in Long County, says he’s seen cases that cast doubt on ill intent.

“Some of these people I’ve seen are older, and they legitimately just inadvertently forgot they had voted," said Evans, who is also chairman of the state ethics commission. "And then there are situations where there’s fraud, and they deliberately tried to cast two ballots.”

Election records show 162 suspected double-voters first cast a ballot during three weeks of in-person early voting, then again on election day.

While the number of suspected double-voters is higher than any other voting fraud case seen in Georgia in recent years, officials don’t believe the extra votes influenced election outcomes.

State Election Board records since 2015 show that absentee ballot fraud has been rare in Georgia, with few violations found. That would remain true even if these cases produce convictions. The rate of double-voting remained low: 0.04% of all 2.4 million votes cast in the primary.

Double-voting is a felony in Georgia, punishable by one to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $100,000.

Governors take different corners in GOP’s U.S. Senate fight

It wasn’t earth-shaking when former Gov. Nathan Deal announced he was backing a fellow Republican from Gainesville, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, in his bid for the U.S. Senate in November’s special election. And yet it marked a rift growing within the state’s Republican Party.

The endorsement was fully expected, especially after Deal’s wife, Sandra, threw her support behind Collins, who has been locked in a highly public feud with the holder of the Senate seat in question, fellow Republican Kelly Loeffler. The ex-governor was in the audience at a Collins event last month when the former first lady bestowed her blessing on the congressman.

But it puts Deal in a separate camp from that of his successor, Gov. Brian Kemp, and not for the first time. Just days before the 2018 GOP runoff for governor, Deal reluctantly endorsed Kemp’s rival and another Gainesville Republican, then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, as the candidate he trusted not to undo “the good reforms that we’ve put in place.” Deal only backed Kemp after his runaway victory over Cagle.

Kemp rejected Collins' strong push for the Senate seat following Isakson’s announcement that he was retiring.

Since then, Kemp has worked hard to ensure Loeffler wins in November — in a free-for-all election featuring 21 candidates of various political affiliations — and joins him at the top of the ballot in 2022 when he seeks reelection.

Loeffler, a former financial executive who may be the richest person serving in the U.S. Senate, is doing her part, too, spending big on TV ads primarily aimed at Collins and claiming she is one of President Donald Trump’s top supporters. Allies who also have fat wallets have added to the ad onslaught.

Collins doesn’t have the cash to match Loeffler, but he has responded by trying to frame himself as the true conservative in the contest while alleging that she has abused her office for personal gain through stock transactions tied to the coronavirus pandemic. She’s dismissed the criticism, and investigators have cleared her of wrongdoing.

Each camp has also lined up big names in Republican circles as supporters.

Besides Kemp, Loeffler’s main supporters include Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She also has nabbed endorsements from several national figures, including former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and ex-U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Joining Deal in backing Collins are U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson — the first Republican member of Georgia’s congressional delegation to take sides — state House Speaker David Ralston, former U.S. Rep. Karen Handel, Public Service Commissioner Bubba McDonald and Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black.

Collins' newest Republican backer is A. Wayne Johnson, who announced he was leaving the race. Johnson’s name, however, will remain on ballots.

Contestants in runoff hope to carry on with Lewis' work

The 5th Congressional District has gone without representation since July, when U.S. Rep. John Lewis died.

That will now be resolved Dec. 1 in a runoff, when voters will pick between former Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall and Robert Franklin, a onetime president of Morehouse College. The winner will finish Lewis' term.

And then a month later somebody else will move into the job.

Both Hall and Franklin say they hope to use their weeks in office to continue the work Lewis did on his favored issues, including voting rights and access to health care.

And then the office will go to the winner in November’s general election, either Democrat Nikema Williams or Republican Angela Stanton-King.

A tale of two suburban districts

The 6th and 7th congressional districts bump up against each other in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, and at first glance — based on applications for absentee ballots — they seem similar.

Measuring by gender and age, they are nearly identical: 55% are women, 38% are under 50 and 61% are over 50.

Dig a little deeper, though, and striking differences emerge.

In the 6th, which stretches from Cobb County east across north Fulton County and into north DeKalb County, 70% of those requesting absentee ballots are white.

In the 7th, covering Gwinnett County and a slice of Forsyth County, only 48% are white. Here’s how the rest break down: 18% are Black, 13% are Asian, 5% are Hispanic, and 15% list their ethnicity as “other.” That could still change — voters can still request absentee ballots — but the district’s voting pool appears to be majority-minority.

Racial tensions roil UGA community

A number of allegations of racial bias have been leveled recently at the University of Georgia and its campus organizations.

Here are a few:

About 200 protesters marched at UGA on Sept. 25 demanding, among other things, that campus police receive continuous diversity training and that new names be given to university buildings bearing names tied to racists. The University System of Georgia created a task force in June to review the names of buildings on all its campuses.

Big name, big money

Sonya Halpern, one of several Democrats running for the Atlanta-based state Senate seat that Nikema Williams is giving up to run for Congress, is bringing in a major supporter: U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Booker, who ran earlier this year for the Democratic nomination for president, will host a fundraiser for Halpern.

That event comes with a pretty hefty price tag: a minimum contribution of $1,000, more in the caliber of a statewide race, not a legislative contest.

Candidates, endorsements, etc.:

— Raphael Warnock, a Democratic candidate in the state’s special election for the U.S. Senate, added a second former president to his list of supporters. Jimmy Carter this past week threw his backing behind the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Barack Obama did the same a few days earlier.

— Hunter Hill, a former state senator who also finished third in the 2018 Republican primary for governor, has endorsed Kelly Loeffler in her bid to hold her U.S,. Senate seat in November’s special election.

— The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is backing the re-election bid of U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler. The endorsement is notable because the Chamber, which generally likes Republicans such as Carter, is spreading out its support, and that includes 23 Democratic freshmen in the U.S. House. None of those Democrats are from Georgia.

— Democrat Kerri McGinty has withdrawn from her race for the state Senate, The Savannah Morning News reports. Still in the race is state Sen. Ben Watson, the Republican chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.