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ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s secretary of state on Wednesday announced an audit of the presidential election results which he said would be carried out with a full count of the ballots because the margin is so narrow.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told a press conference his office wanted the process to begin by the end of the week and expected it to take until November 20 , certification deadline.
“It will be a big job, but we will work with the counties to get it done in time for our state certification,” Raffensperger said, flanked by local election officials on the steps of the State Capitol. “We have all worked hard to get fair and accurate tally to ensure that the will of the voters is reflected in the final tally and that every voter will have confidence in the result, whether their candidate won or lost.”
President-elect Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by more than 14,000 votes out of nearly 5 million votes in the state. Almost all of the ballots have been counted, although counties have until Friday to certify their results.
Earlier this week, the two U.S. senators from Georgia, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, called on Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to step down over unspecified allegations of election mismanagement. The two face a close election in January that will determine which party controls the Senate. Raffensperger has said he will not resign and assured the public that there have been no widespread problems.
The audit is a new requirement put in place by a law passed in 2019 that also provided for new voting machines purchased last year. The state has chosen to do a risk-limiting audit, in which a random sample of ballots or receipts generated by voting machines is checked against the results produced by vote-counting equipment to verify the results. accuracy.
It was up to Raffensperger to choose which breed to audit. He chose the presidential race and said the narrow margin means the audit will effectively result in a full recount.
When asked if he picked the presidential race because of the Trump campaign’s call for a manual recount, Raffensperger said, “No, we’re doing this because that’s really what matters most. meaning with the national significance of this race and the proximity of this race. . “
For verification, election officials will work with the paper ballots in batches, dividing them into stacks for each candidate. Then they will run the stacks through machines to count the number of ballots for each candidate. The scanners will not read the data on the ballots, but will simply count them.
Chris Harvey, chief electoral officer in the secretary of state’s office, said the agency would have a call with county election officials on Thursday to review training requirements and expectations. He said the counties would likely begin the audit process this afternoon or early Friday morning.
Raffensperger said the process will have “a lot of control” with both sides having the opportunity to observe.
There is no mandatory recount law in Georgia, but state law provides for this option for a candidate who follows if the margin is less than 0.5 percentage point. Biden’s lead was 0.28 percentage points on Wednesday afternoon.
Once the results of the audit are certified, the losing campaign can then request that recount, which will be done by scanners that will read and count the votes, Raffensperger said.
US Representative Doug Collins, a Georgian Republican who heads Trump’s legal efforts in Georgia, called the upcoming audit “a first step.” He noted that the Trump campaign had called for a manual recount.
“It’s a victory for integrity,” Collins said. “It’s a victory for transparency.”
Collins denied that Republican demands for further scrutiny of Georgia’s vote were politically motivated to fire GOP voters before the two rounds of the state Senate on Jan.5.
“Look, I don’t think anyone in their right mind thinks that we don’t have enough attention being given to Georgia right now,” Collins said. “I don’t think motivation or turnout is an issue in Georgia.”
The problems reported by the Trump campaign and his allies are typical of every election: signature issues, as well as the possibility of a small number of erroneous or lost ballots. With Biden leading Trump by wide margins in key states, none of these issues would affect the election outcome.
In addition to the audit of the presidential race, Raffensperger announced that he was consolidating the elections in the second round. A second round for all state races was scheduled for December 1, while the second round for both races in the US Senate was scheduled for January 5. Raffensperger said he is consolidating those rounds on Jan.5.
The only exception is the second round of special elections to fill the remainder of the term of US Representative John Lewis. This election will always take place on December 1. The person who wins this election will serve for about a month before Nikema Williams, who has just been elected to succeed the late Lewis, takes office.
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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., Contributed reporting.
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