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Donald Trump’s efforts to reverse the outcome of the US presidential election suffered significant setbacks on Friday after Georgia officially certified Joe Biden’s victory and top Republican lawmakers in Michigan scrapped the idea of handing over the state to the president. .
The events were the final blows to Trump’s unprecedented and risky effort to retain power by discarding or ignoring millions of votes that led Biden to victory by a clear margin in various battle states and in the Electoral College.
Georgia’s secretary of state and his governor, Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp, both Republicans, certified the results of their election on Friday, officially making Biden the first Democrat to win the state since the early 1990s.
The certification came after an audit and manual recount of the 5 million votes in a state that Biden got by just over 12,000 votes. Trump could still request a formal recount, which would be done by machine.
The US president attacked Raffensperger and Kemp on Twitter, repeating claims without evidence of “hundreds of thousands of illegal votes” in the state. “Why are they so quick to certify a pointless count?”
Meanwhile, the top two Republicans in the Michigan state legislature met with Trump in the White House, but came out to pour cold water on the idea that they would try to intervene and undo the margin of more than 150,000 votes by which Biden won the election. state.
“We have not yet learned of any information that will change the outcome of the elections in Michigan and, as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan voters,” said Mike Shirkey and Lee Chatfield, Michigan Leader. of the Senate and President of the Chamber respectively.
“The candidates who get the most votes win the Michigan election and electoral votes,” he added his statement.
The meeting at the White House came after a Trump campaign adviser raised the idea that state lawmakers on the battlefield could unilaterally declare Trump the winner if the votes were not certified.
Earlier in the week, a bipartisan electoral board in Michigan’s Wayne County, which includes Detroit, stalled in certifying its results after two Republican members refused to give their approval.
Republicans eventually voted to certify, but then sought to withdraw those votes, a move that came after Trump called them personally, US media reported.
Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to the Trump campaign, hailed the initial certification failure as a “great victory” for Trump, tweeting Tuesday: “If the state board does the same, the Republican state legislator will select the voters.” .
The Michigan state canvassing board, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, will meet Monday to consider whether to certify its election results. The Trump campaign this week dropped a lawsuit that sought to stop certification.
