Biden confirms Georgia’s winner in US presidential election – national

Georgia The governor and top election official are showing the results, which were confirmed Friday Joe Biden Won American presidential race Republican President Donald Trump, Bringing the state one step closer to wrapping up an election rife with fraudulent allegations by Trump and his supporters.

The results, confirmed by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, show 159 counties in the state with 2.47 million votes, followed by President Donald Trump with 2.46 million votes and Libertarian Joe Jorgensen with 62,138 votes. This puts Biden by a margin of 12,670 votes or 0.25%.

Later on Friday, the government elected 16 people to the Brian Kemp state presidency. In a statement aired online, Kemp did not explicitly endorse the results. Instead he wants the law to “make the certification formal, which will pave the way for the Trump campaign to pursue other legal options and a special account if they choose.”

The Republican governor has not come forward to defend the integrity of this year’s election amid attacks by Trump and members of his own party who argue without evidence that the presidential vote in Georgia was tainted by fraud. Kemp did not approve of Trump’s fraudulent claims, nor did he support fellow Republican Rafans‌perger’s claim that the election was fair.

Trump’s approval two years ago was a primary victory for the Republican, which heated up the camp, and a narrow general election victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Even after losing the White House, Trump is expected to have a powerful influence with GOP voters if Kemp is to be re-elected in the upcoming Senate runoffs in Georgia and in 2022.

The counties’ results were confirmed by a hand count of 5 million ballots cast in the race, according to results released by the Secretary of State. This result came as a result of the audit required by the new state law and was not in response to any suspicious issues with the state results or the official recount request. Rafens‌perger said Biden confirmed the success by hand.

Kemp said Friday that he was concerned the audit would only look at ballots, not signatures on absentee ballot applications or absentee ballot envelopes.

“As a former foreign secretary, he was the first person to know and confirm that the signature matched twice before the absentee ballot was counted,” Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in a statement.

Of course, absentee ballot applications and envelopes should be checked when signatures are received. The Raffensberger office said voting was only to ensure that the voting machines counted the ballots correctly.

2:39U.S. election: State aims to complete ballot audit by midnight Wednesday, Georgia election official

Two years ago, when he was foreign secretary, Kemp was pushed back against protests from Democrats, accusing him of suppressing voter numbers to improve his odds of winning the presidential election. At the time, he insisted that Georgia’s laws “prevent elections from being stolen from anyone.”

At a news conference at State Capitol on Friday morning, before the results were confirmed, Rafensberger reiterated his confidence in the 2020 election.

“I have been working as an engineer all my life and I live by the motto that numbers are not a lie,” he says. “As Secretary of State, I believe the numbers we have submitted today are correct. These numbers reflect public judgment, not the decision of the Secretary of State or the courts or the campaign.”

Rafens‌berger’s office faltered in advance when the certification was declared incomplete. Forty minutes later, a corrected news release was sent that confirmation was still coming. Momentary slip is another moment of play in a race that is filled with it.

0:30U.S. elections: Countless ballots in Floyd County, Georgia ‘unfortunate’ but not ‘significant change’ says state official

Now that the results have been confirmed and the margin is below 0.5%, there will be two working days to request a recount for Trump’s campaign. That recount will be done using scanning machines that read and count votes and the counties will be paid, the state office secretary said.

The hand count for the audit produced some discrepancies from the number of previous machines, but no single county showed a difference in margins larger than 0.73% and the difference in margin was less than 0.05% in 103 of the 159 counties in the state, the Secretary of State said. During the audit, many counties found previously unaccounted ballots and had to correct their results.

“It is very honestly hard to believe that countless ballots were found just weeks after the razor-thin result in the presidential election during the audit,” Kemp said. “This is not acceptable.”

Raffens‌berger said Friday that legislative changes should be proposed with the goal of increasing confidence in the results, such as allowing state officials to interfere in counties with systemic problems in conducting elections, requiring photo ID for absentee voting, and including stricter restrictions to allow voters to challenge. Who may not live where they say.

“These measures will improve the security of our elections, and it will lead to greater public confidence,” he said.

Kemp said he also looks forward to working with lawmakers to resolve election issues.

2:45U.S. elections: ‘Stories and stories’ are not enough to manipulate Georgia official election results

Rafens‌berger, a “passionate conservative,” has endured harsh criticism and insults over the conduct of elections from fellow Republicans – from the president to the state Republican Party president. He accepted their feelings on Friday.

“Like other Republicans, I am disappointed that our candidate, Georgia, did not win the election. Closer elections sow distrust. People feel deceived,” he said.

Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to take over the state since 1992.

Associated Press reporters Ben Nadler and Sudheen Tanwala of Atlanta and Russ Bynum of Savannah, Georgia contributed to the report.