Georgia confirms Biden victory and finds no widespread fraud after recount

Georgia has confirmed Democratic President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Nov 3 election in the state after completing a hand audit of ballots on Thursday, November 19, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said.

The audit, launched after unofficial results showed Biden leading Republican President Donald Trump by about 14,000 out of more than 5 million votes cast, ended with Biden winning by 12,284, according to data from Raffensperger’s office.

“Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said in a statement.

“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.”

The confirmation makes Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the southern US state in almost three decades, since Bill Clinton in 1992. 

The Biden campaign’s communications director for Georgia, Jaclyn Rothenberg, said in a statement Thursday evening that the recount outcome, “simply reaffirmed what we already knew: Georgia voters selected Joe Biden to be their next president.”

“We are grateful to the election officials, volunteers and workers for working overtime and under unprecedented circumstances to complete this recount, as the utmost form of public service,” she said.

Raffensperger, a Republican, is expected to formally certify Biden’s victory today, November 20th, despite pressure from Trump, who has claimed without evidence that there were widespread irregularities and fraud in states that he lost to Biden, including Georgia.