06-11-20, 23:22
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#24
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re: Georgia Announces Recount After Biden Lead in Pennsylvania & Georgia
US Election 2020:
BIDEN- 264 TRUMP- 214
Georgia Announces Recount After Presidential Race Too Close to Call
The Guardian UK, 6 NOV 2020.
Election officials in Georgia announced a recount on Friday after the presidential race was deemed “too close to call” in that state.
Joe Biden overtook Donald Trump in Georgia, historically a Republican stronghold, at around 4.30am ET to secure a lead of 1,579 votes.
Related: What's happening in Pennsylvania? The state that may be about to tip the US election
Trump and Biden were locked in a tight contest on Friday, with the Democrat edging ahead, to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. For Trump, Georgia is a state he must win.
But with such a razor-thin margin, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, said ballots will undergo a recount.
“Right now, Georgia remains too close to call. Of approximately 5m votes cast, we’ll have a margin of a few thousand,” he said in a press conference. He added: “With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia.”
If Biden goes on to win Georgia, it would mark a major victory for the Democrats – and a huge upset for the Republicans – in a state that has been reliably Republican for decades.
The last time a Democratic presidential nominee won in the state was Bill Clinton in 1992. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Georgia by five percentage points.
Raffensperger acknowledged that Georgia’s result has “huge implications for the entire country” and officials said the unofficial tally could be completed by the end of the weekend.
He added: “The stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides. We will not let those debates distract us from our work. We will get it right, and we will defend the integrity of our elections.”
Georgia does not run automatic recounts, but candidates can request them if the margin is within 0.5%.
The announcement of a recount came after a judge dismissed a lawsuit from the Trump campaign over the state’s handling of absentee ballots in Chatham county.
The Trump campaign has launched a swath of legal cases across the country, which are largely intended as a distraction and are founded on weak legal arguments, experts say.
Related: Trump's lawsuits are diversionary tactic with little legal basis, experts say
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