Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has announced that elections officials would conduct a recount of the 2020 vote in the state, because of the razor-thin difference in ballots cast for Joe Biden and President Trump.
With 99 percent of the state’s vote tallied as of 12:40 a.m. on Friday, Biden led Trump by 1,564 votes.
“Out of approximately five million votes cast, we’ll have a margin of a few thousand,” Raffensperger, a Republican, told reporters at a Friday press conference. The secretary emphasized that his office would focus on making sure that “every legal vote is counted and recorded accurately…with a margin that small, there will be a recount.”
Georgia Voting Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling told reporters that he had not seen evidence of substantial voter fraud.
“We are not seeing any widespread irregularities,” Sterling said. “We are investigating any credible accusation [of fraud] with any real evidence behind it.” Sterling added that because of the narrow margins between votes for the two presidential candidates, elections officials would rigorously go over the final results for any sign of fraud.
President Trump and allies have claimed that the incumbent’s losses in crucial swing states Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as apparent Biden gains in Georgia and Pennsylvania, are due to widespread voter fraud.
“This election is not over,” the Trump campaign said in a statement on Friday morning. “The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final.”