Trump calls for recount in Georgia as states prepare to certify election results

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’s legal team said Saturday that his campaign called for a recount of votes in Georgia’s presidential race after the results showed Democrat Joe Biden winning the state.

Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the state’s election results Friday, in which Biden beat Trump by 12,670 votes out of some 5 million cast, or 0.25%.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp later certified the state’s list of 16 presidential electors.

The statement from the president’s legal team read: “Today, the Trump campaign filed a petition for a recount in Georgia. We are focused on ensuring that all aspects of Georgia State Law and the United States Constitution are followed so that every legal vote is counted.

President Trump and his campaign continue to insist on an honest count in Georgia, which must include signature matching and other vital safeguards.

The statement added: “Without the signature match, this recount would be a sham and would again allow illegal votes to be counted. If there is no signature match, this would be as false as the initial vote tally and tally.

“Let’s stop giving people false results. There must be a time when we stop counting illegal votes. Hopefully it will arrive soon. “

Georgia law allows a candidate to request a recount if the margin is less than 0.5%. The count would be done by scanners that read and tabulate the votes.

County poll workers have already done a full manual tally of all votes cast in the presidential race. But that grew out of a mandatory audit requirement and is not considered an official tally under the law.

State law requires that a race be audited by hand to ensure the machines count the ballots accurately and Raffensperger selected the presidential race.

Due to the narrow margin in that race, a full manual ballot count was necessary to complete the audit, he said.

Trump has criticized the audit, calling it a “joke” in a tweet stating without evidence that “thousands of fraudulent votes have been found.”

Twitter has flagged the post for containing disputed information.

Votes that had not previously been counted were found in various counties during the audit, requiring recertification of election results in those counties prior to state certification of the results.