Georgia secretary of state issues correction, clarifying election results not yet certified
ATLANTA — Georgia's Republican secretary of state was forced to issue a correction Friday after he initially claimed that the Peach State had certified that Joe Biden won the state's presidential election, beating President Trump by more than 12,000 votes and securing 16 Electoral College votes.
An earlier announcement around 12:30 p.m. said the state had completed its certification, but around an hour later, the office of Brad Raffensperger, the beleaguered secretary of state, issued the correction. The snafu was just the latest embarrassing turn in what has been a chaotic electoral process in the traditional Republican state.
Earlier at the state Capitol, Raffensperger had declared: “Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie."
“As secretary of state, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the secretary of state’s office or of courts or of either campaign,” he said.
Trump's campaign has until Tuesday to request a recount since the margin of victory was below 0.5 percentage points. If requested, the recount would be done using scanning machines that read and count votes and not another hand tally.
Taxpayers in Georgia would foot the bill.
Georgia's hand count completed Wednesday stemmed from a new state law and wasn't in response to problems with the state's results or a recount request.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/georgia-secretary-of-state-issues-correction-clarifying-election-results-not-yet-certified