Georgia confirms Biden win
Hand count of 5 million ballots certified by secretary of state
ATLANTA — Georgia’s top elections official on Friday certified results showing Joe Biden won the presidential race over Republican President Donald Trump.
The certification brings the state one step closer to wrapping up an election that has been fraught with accusations of fraud by Trump and his supporters. It is now up to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to certify the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors. He has until Saturday evening.
The results certified by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had Biden with 2.47 million votes, President Donald Trump with 2.46 million votes and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen with 62,138. That leaves Biden leading by a margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25 percent.
The certification of results reported by the state’s 159 counties followed a hand count of the 5 million ballots cast in the race. The hand tally stemmed from an audit required by a new state law and wasn’t in response to any suspected problems with the state’s results or an official recount request. The audit was meant to confirm that the voting machines correctly tabulated the votes.
“Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “As secretary of state, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the secretary of state’s office or of courts or of either campaign.”
Kemp, the Republican governor, hasn’t defended the integrity of this year’s elections amid attacks by Trump and other members of his party, who claim that the presidential vote in Georgia was tainted by fraud. Kemp has neither endorsed Trump’s fraud claims nor backed Raffensperger in his assertion that the election was conducted fairly.
Biden is the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the state since 1992.
Trump’s campaign will have two business days to request a recount since the margin is within 0.5 percent. That recount would be done using scanning machines that read and tally the votes and would be paid for by the counties, the secretary of state’s office has said.
The hand count produced some slight differences from the previous machine tally, but no individual county showed a variation in margin larger than 0.73 percent, and the variation in margin in 103 of the state’s 159 counties was less than 0.05 percent, the secretary of state’s office said. During the audit, several counties discovered previously uncounted ballots and had to recertify their results.