Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters Friday afternoon the state is likely to conduct a recount of votes due to a razor-thin margin between President DonaldTrump and Joe Biden.
“The focus for our office and for the county elections officials for now remains on making sure that every legal vote is counted and recorded accurately,” Raffensperger told reporters during a press briefing. “As we are closing in on a final count, we can begin to look toward our next steps. With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia,” Raffensperger predicted.
According to NPR, a recount in the state can only be requested once the state has gone through a “risk limiting audit” and the vote is certified by the
state, which isn’t expected until about Nov. 20. Recounts in the state can be requested if the margin of victory for a candidate is within half of a percent. Biden took the lead in the state Thursday and currently leads Trump by less than 1,500 votes.“We are literally looking at a margin of less than, you know, a large high school,” Georgia’s voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling added.
Trump has been claiming election fraud since late Wednesday after indications showed that the vote would be close, however, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling refuted the claims.
“We’re not seeing any widespread irregularities,” he said.
Trump has watched his lead in the state disappear over the last two days as Black Americans in Atlanta and the surrounding counties are supporting Biden. Much of that effort is being attributed to Stacey Abrams, whose New Georgia Project, founded in 2013, has led to more than 800,000 Black Americans in the state registering to vote.
The same goes for Trump in Pennsylvania. The president had an early lead in the state, but mail-in ballots have favored the former vice president heavily as he is leading the count in both states and Nevada. The only state where Trump is still in the lead is in North Carolina.