Georgia completed a manual recount of the electoral ballot cast for the 3 November Presidential elections in the United States, and democratic President-elect Joe Biden has emerged the winner by 306-232 on Thursday, 19 November
The Associated Press called the race on Thursday evening following the recount, further affirming Biden’s victory as the next President of the US.
“Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results. This is a credit to the hard work of our county and local elections officials who moved quickly to undertake and complete such a momentous task in a short period of time,” said Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger to AP.
Raffensperger had earlier announced that all 159 counties would participate in a “risk-limiting audit” that would include a hand recount. The audit of roughly five million votes was completed late Wednesday, 18 November reported The New York Times.
The recount process revealed that four counties — Floyd, Fayette, Walton and Douglas — had votes that were not part of the original count. Trump carried Floyd, Fayette and Walton Counties; Biden won Douglas County, reported The New York Times.
In the recount of these four counties, President Trump had 1,400 more votes that edged him closer to Biden, but he still fell short of victory. Gabriel Sterling oversaw the implementation of Georgia’s new voting system and said the recount has reduced Biden’s margin from 14,000 to 12,800. Republican Raffensperger said that the discount was not because of fraud or rigging, but due to human error, reported AP.
Biden is First Democrat to Win Georgia in Three Decades
Biden won 16 electoral college votes and has become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the southern state of Georgia in three decades, since Bill Clinton in 1996.
“The recount process simply reaffirmed what we already knew: Georgia voters selected Joe Biden to be their next president,” said Jaclyn Rothenberg, the Biden campaign spokeswoman, reported AP.
(With inputs from The New York Times and AP)
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