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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (right) on Wednesday announced he would oversee a manual count of the ballots cast in Peach state as president-elect Joe biden
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Raffensperger, who has come under an avalanche of pressure from Republicans to take some sort of action given the narrow state-wide margin, said he would implement a risk-limiting audit for cover the presidential race. The audit is expected to be completed by November 20, when the state must certify the results of its elections.
“With the margin being so close, it will take a full manual recount in every county. This will help build confidence. It will be an audit, a recount and a new check at the same time. It will be a heavy load, but we will work with the counties to achieve this in time for our state certification, ”Raffensperger said at a press conference.
The announcement comes as Trump and the Republicans in Georgia have promoted baseless allegations of electoral fraud in Georgia to explain the margin of more than 14,000 votes between Trump and Biden in the historically red state.
Raffensperger, in particular, has faced criticism from fellow Republicans because of his election watch, along with Georgia Sens. Kelly loeffler
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“Earlier today, Senators Loeffler and Perdue called for my resignation. Let me start by saying that this will not happen, ”replied Raffensperger in a statement on Monday. “Georgian voters hired me, and voters will fire me.”
The reprimand did little to ease the pressure, with members of the GOP House in Georgia continuing Tuesday to urge it to review unsubstantiated electoral fraud allegations and the Trump campaign specifically calling for a manual recount.
The secretary of state crossed a fine line in his remarks on Wednesday, saying he would look into allegations of voter fraud, while saying local officials did their job well on election day.
“It is they and their staff who do the hard work on the ground to make sure all legal votes are counted,” Raffensperger said. “Their job is difficult, they carried out their responsibilities and they did their job. These men and women, as well as my office, will continue to obey the law and count every legal vote. “
“My office will continue to investigate every case of illegal voting, double voting, criminal voting, out-of-state voting,” he added. “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.”
The recount will be on all votes cast in the state rather than a subset given the narrow statewide margin.
“When you’ve got 5 million votes and the margin is so close, 14,000, if we take 10,000 votes out, all of a sudden you might say, ‘Well, that’s the one who won.’ You take out 100,000, that says that person won. You take out a million, that person won. And that’s why, mathematically, you actually have to do a full hand recount of everything because the margin is so close, ”Raffensperger said.
Regardless of the results of the recount, Biden will still have enough Electoral College votes to win the White House. With calls from Georgia and North Carolina still pending and the reluctance of some outlets to call Arizona for Biden amid his lead there, the former vice president still has 279 votes. election after winning the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
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