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Elections officials in Georgia announced a recount Friday after the presidential race was deemed “too close to call” in that state.
Joe Biden edged out Donald Trump in Georgia, historically a Republican stronghold, around 4.30 a.m. ET to secure a 1,579-vote lead.
Trump and Biden were embroiled in a close contest Friday, with the Democrat stepping forward, to obtain the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. For Trump, Georgia is a must-win state.
But with such a narrow margin, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the ballots will undergo a recount.
“At this time, Georgia remains too close to call. Of approximately 5 million votes cast, we will have a margin of a few thousand ”, he said at a press conference. He added: “With such a small margin, there will be a count in Georgia.”
If Biden wins Georgia, it would mark a huge victory for Democrats, and a huge surprise for Republicans, in a state that has been reliably Republican for decades.
The last time a Democratic presidential candidate 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 recount 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 allow these discussions to distract us from our work. We will do well and defend the integrity of our elections. “
Georgia does not perform automatic counts, but candidates can request them if the margin is within 0.5%.
The announcement of a recount came after a judge dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump campaign over Chatham County’s handling of absentee ballot status.
The Trump campaign has launched a series of legal cases across the country, which are largely intended to be a distraction and are based on weak legal arguments, experts say.
Matt Morgan, Trump’s campaign general counsel, said Friday: “Georgia is heading for a recount, where we are confident we will find improperly collected ballots and where President Trump will ultimately prevail.”
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, dismissed the fraud allegations, saying, “We are not seeing any widespread wrongdoing.”
Sterling said 4,169 ballots were dropped, most of which were absent, from four counties, including Gwinnett County, which includes suburban Atlanta and has shifted to Democrats in recent years.
The state also has an unknown number of military and foreign ballots and an unknown number of provisional ballots to be “curated.”
Biden’s strength in Georgia is the result of strong turnout among black voters in suburban Atlanta, who have become younger and increasingly diverse.
The Black Voters Matter Fund, a nonprofit organization that advocates for increased voter registration and access, praised the impact of black voters in Georgia, who they said “saved the election.”
They said more than a million black voters cast their ballots early in the state, exceeding 2016 numbers, and they reported an “increase” in registration and turnout among young black voters.
Co-founders LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright said: “A new south is emerging and Georgia is the beacon … Georgia is at the epicenter of this country right now and we are claiming victory.”
It is also the product of the work of figures like Stacey Abrams, who since losing the state race for governor in 2018 has invested her efforts in Fair Fight, an organization she founded that focuses on fighting voter suppression.
The recount could also have significant implications for the fight for control of the US Senate, with one, possibly two, Senate elections heading for a runoff.
According to an Associated Press election investigation, there have been at least 31 recount statewide since 2000, of which three changed the outcome of an election. But in those, the initial margins were even narrower, at hundreds instead of thousands.
Many analysts believe that Georgia’s shift to a swing state is almost inevitable, an assessment reflected in the energies invested in the state by Biden’s campaign.
In the final weeks before the election, Biden, his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama have paid visits. Trump has also demonstrated there.
“Can you believe it? Two days from now, we will win this state again and we will win four more great years in the White House,” Trump told supporters in the Georgia city of Rome on Sunday.
