The results were certified hours after a first announcement. However it was premature and the process was not completed until later.
Georgia officials have certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. Hours earlier, an employee sent out a statement saying that the process had been completed.
The recount, now official and certified, secured 16 state electoral votes in Biden’s favor. This was a blow to Trump’s proposal, which wants to nullify voting in half a dozen states, and consequently the national election.
Trump continues to deny defeat and defend alleged voter fraud. Meanwhile he floods the courts with mostly unfounded lawsuits, which explains why most have been unsuccessful.
Secretary of State, the Republican Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s top election official, was clear in stating “I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie”. At the same press conference Friday morning, he confirmed the findings by saying that “I believe the numbers we have presented today are correct.”
The certification came after the manual recount of the five million votes. Raffensperger gave instructions to recount after Trump campaign’s request.
After the recount it was confirmed that Biden beat Trump by more than 12,000 votes.
“Like other Republicans, I’m disappointed that our candidate didn’t win Georgia’s electoral votes,” Raffensperger said.
Georgia is just one of the states in which Trump was defeated, but where he is contesting the results. The certified recount numbers will be released on Monday in Michigan and Pennsylvania and on November 30 and December 1 in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Official results show a 12,284-vote lead in Biden’s favor. Trump got 1,872 votes from the initial count. According to the first count, the difference was 14,156.
Now, Trump can resort to state law, which allows the loser of an election to request a recount made by high-speed scanning machines if the winner is ahead by less than half a percentage point. Biden won by 0.25%. Trump now has two business days to request a recount.
