The Georgia Secretary of State on Friday certified Georgia’s election results, recording a victory for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the state even as President Donald Trump has continued to raise challenges in Georgia and throughout the 2020 election results.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office announced they had certified the election results in a Friday statement. WSBTV reporter Justin Gray tweeted a copy of the announcement saying, “Now it’s officially official at 3:58 @GaSecofState says he has certified the election results”
by GA law, now that results have been certified, President Trump can ask for a recount since the margin was less than .5%. Didn’t we just have a hand recount? yes. but that was technically a risk limiting audit. this would be a machine recount.
— Justin Gray (@JustinGrayWSB) November 20, 2020
Gray added, “by GA law, now that results have been certified, President Trump can ask for a recount since the margin was less than .5%. Didn’t we just have a hand recount? yes. but that was technically a risk limiting audit. this would be a machine recount.”
The election certification in Georgia was expected throughout the day on Friday and Raffensperger’s office had previously issued an erroneous announcement that they had certified the election results earlier in the day.
Earlier on Friday, Trump addressed the anticipated vote certification in Georgia, tweeting, “The Governor of Georgia, and Secretary of State, refuse to let us look at signatures which would expose hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots, and give the Republican Party and me, David Perdue, and perhaps Kelly Loeffler, a BIG VICTORY. Why won’t they do it, and why are they so fast to certify a meaningless tally?”
…Why won’t they do it, and why are they so fast to certify a meaningless tally?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 20, 2020
In a Thursday press conference, Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani said, “In the city of Atlanta, Republicans were not allowed to watch the absentee mail-in ballot process. Inspections completely cast aside. And we have numerous double voters. We have numerous out of state voters. And we have specific evidence of intimidation and changes of votes. That will all be in the lawsuit that comes out tomorrow.”
Trump campaign legal advisor Jenna Ellis, in a Thursday statement, also said Georgia had not yet certified its results at the time and should not do so. Ellis said, “This so-called hand recount went exactly as we expected because Georgia simply recounted all of the illegal ballots that had been included in the total. We continue to demand that Georgia conduct an honest recount, which includes signature matching. We intend to pursue all legal options to ensure that only legal ballots are counted.”
The certification of the election results comes two and a half weeks after election day on Nov. 3 and more than a week after Georgia ordered a hand recount of all of its presidential election ballots. Some counties did find additional votes for Trump but following the recount, the state of Georgia saw Biden’s lead over Trump had shrunk from over 14,000 votes to about 12,587, still not enough to reverse Biden’s lead in the state.
On Thursday, Raffensperger issued a press statement saying a recount and audit of ballots upheld the state’s original results, finding a win for Biden.
With a win in Georgia, Biden would receive the state’s 16 electoral votes. With Georgia, Fox News has projected Biden to hold 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, placing the Democratic candidate about the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win the presidency.
