ATLANTA — Georgia has finally certified election results showing Joe Biden won the state’s 16 Electoral College votes after prematurely announcing the move earlier in the day and being forced to backtrack.
An earlier announcement around 12:30 p.m. said the state had completed its certification, but around an hour later, the office of Brad Raffensperger, the beleaguered secretary of state, issued the correction. The snafu was just the latest embarrassing turn in what has been a chaotic electoral process in the traditionally Republican state.
In the end, the final results certified by Raffensperger had Biden ahead of President Trump by 12,670 votes. Under state law, Raffensperger was required to certify the results by 5 p.m. Friday. Now, Gov. Brian Kemp has until 5 p.m. Saturday to certify the slate of 16 presidential electors. Kemp, who has been largely silent throughout the whole vote debacle, was slated to speak to the press at 5 p.m.
Earlier at the state Capitol, Raffensperger had declared: “Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie.”
“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,” he said.
Trump’s campaign has until Tuesday to request a recount since the margin of victory was below 0.5 percentage points. If requested, the recount would be done using scanning machines that read and count votes and not another hand tally.
Taxpayers in Georgia would foot the bill.
Georgia’s hand count completed Wednesday stemmed from a new state law and wasn’t in response to problems with the state’s results or a recount request.
The Trump campaign has repeatedly alleged widespread voter fraud in Georgia but has never shown proof.
