Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp calls for audit after state certifies election results



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Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp certified the state’s election results on Friday, saying that now that the results are certified, the Trump campaign can pursue other legal options to demand a recount. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, also a Republican, told reporters on Friday morning that President-elect Biden has definitely won the state, after the state hand recount was completed on Thursday.

But Kemp did not approve of the results, calling instead for another full recount. Kemp, who was Georgia’s secretary of state before Raffensperger, has not publicly defended the state’s electoral process against accusations by the president and his campaign. He alleged on Friday that the audit revealed significant errors in several counties, including Floyd, Douglas and Walton.

Kemp said the audit only looked at the ballots, not the signatures on absence requests or the signatures on the ballot envelopes. He called on Raffensperger to “consider addressing these concerns” and conduct “a sample verification of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes and to compare these to the signatures on requests and in files that the secretary’s office of State “.

The Georgian Secretary of State’s office has repeatedly reiterated that at this point in the process it is not possible to match the signatures – which has already taken place as part of a signature verification process in two stages – because the ballots are separated from the envelopes to ensure secrecy. voter selections.

Kemp’s press conference will come after a bizarre string of events on Friday afternoon, starting with Raffensperger issuing a statement saying the results had been certified, then making a corrected statement within half an hour that they would be certified. later Friday. He certified the results around 4 p.m., an hour before Kemp held his press conference.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump on Friday in a tweet accused Kemp and Raffensperger of refusing to “look at signatures that would expose hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots” which he said would give the “Republican Party and I, David Perdue and maybe Kelly Loeffler a BIG WIN.”

“Why don’t they do it, and why are they so quick to certify a meaningless count?” Mr. Trump tweeted.

Since the results of the manual recount were still within the 0.5% margin, the Trump campaign can request another recount within two business days. If the Trump campaign calls for another recount, it will be an automatic recount.

Georgia was one of five states Mr. Biden abandoned when Mr. Trump won in 2016. The state has not voted to send a Democrat to the White House since former President Bill Clinton l ‘won in 1992.



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