ATLANTA – Georgia's governor and top elections official on Friday certified results showing Joe Biden won the presidential race over Republican President Donald Trump, bringing the state one step closer to wrapping up an election fraught with unfounded accusations of fraud by Trump and his supporters.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified results reported by the state's 159 counties that show Biden with 2.47 million votes, President Donald Trump with 2.46 million votes and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen with 62,138. That leaves Biden leading by a margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25%.
Later Friday, Gov. Brian Kemp certified the state's slate of 16 presidential electors. In an announcement streamed online, Kemp did not clearly endorse the results. Instead he said the law requires him to "formalize the certification, which paves the way for the Trump campaign to pursue other legal options and a separate recount if they choose."
The Republican governor hasn't stepped forward to defend the integrity of this year's elections amid attacks by Trump and other members of his own party, who claim without evidence that the presidential vote in Georgia was tainted by fraud. Kemp has neither endorsed Trump's fraud claims nor backed Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, in his assertion that the election was conducted fairly.
Trump's endorsement two years ago helped Kemp win a heated Republican primary and eke out a narrow general election victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Even after losing the White House, Trump is expected to remain a powerful influence with GOP voters in the upcoming Senate runoffs in Georgia as well as in 2022, when Kemp will have to seek re-election.
The counties' results were affirmed by a hand count of the 5 million ballots cast in the race, according to results released by the secretary of state's office. The tally resulted from an audit required by a new state law and wasn't in response to any suspected problems with the state's results or an official recount request. Raffensperger said the hand tally confirmed Biden's victory.
Kemp said Friday that he was concerned that the audit looked only at ballots, not the signatures on the absentee ballot applications or absentee ballot envelopes.
"As a former Secretary of State, he is the first to know and confirm that a signature is matched twice prior to an absentee ballot being counted," Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs said in a statement.
In fact, the signatures on absentee ballot applications and envelopes are required to be checked when they are received. The audit is only meant to ensure that the voting machines counted the ballots correctly, Raffensperger's office has said.
Raffensperger's office stumbled earlier in the day when it prematurely announced the certification while it was still unfinished. Forty minutes later, a corrected news release was sent out saying that certification was still to come.
