Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed Friday morning that the Peach State will recount the ballots cast in the state, citing the thin margin between votes for President Donald Trump and for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Biden took the lead in Georgia on Friday morning after Trump had held the advantage for several days while outstanding votes continued to be counted. The final margin is expected to be within a few thousand votes.
“Right now, Georgia remains too close to call,” Raffensperger said at a news conference on Friday morning. “Out of approximately 5 million votes cast, we will have a margin of a few thousand. The focus for our office and for the county election officials for now remains on making sure that every legal is counted and recorded accurately.”
Georgia Secretary of State:
“There will be a recount in Georgia."pic.twitter.com/UKrY0SQrkr
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 6, 2020
By Friday morning, Biden held a lead of 917 voted with roughly 8,000 ballots remaining to be counted in the state. As The Daily Wire reported:
According to CBS Atlanta, with 100% of precincts reporting and the vast majority of the ballots counted in the state of Georgia, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has amassed 2,449, 377 votes, giving him a 917 vote lead over President Trump, who has amassed 2,448, 454 votes, Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen gathered 61,380 votes. Both Trump and Biden received 49.4% of the vote.
According to the office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger at 8:15 a.m. on Friday, approximately 8,197 ballots remained to be counted, dispersed this way: Floyd County: 444; Gwinnett County: 4,800: Laurens County: 1,797, and Taylor County: 456. The office added, “An additional approximately 8,900 military and overseas absentee ballots have been sent out to requesters but not yet returned. Such ballots, if postmarked by Election Day, can be accepted within three days of Election Day.”
One major outlet called the presidential race for Biden on Friday morning. Decision Desk HQ awarded the state of Pennsylvania to Biden after he took a lead in the vote total in the state. The state gave Biden, according to the Decision Desk HQ model, 273 electoral votes, just over the 270 vote threshold needed to declare victory.
Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, and Alaska are still uncalled in the model, and for most other outlets as well. Arizona has been called for Biden by Fox News and The Associated Press, though thousands of outstanding ballots remain to be counted and Trump is gaining on Biden in the state.
The Trump campaign has filed a series of lawsuits in battleground states, the latest of which was filed in Nevada alleging thousands of ballots were cast illegally. The legal battles will likely take some time to play out in the courts and it is unclear what impact, if any, they will have on the presidential election.
The Trump campaign has not conceded the race, maintaining that “this election is not over” while legal challenges play out and outstanding ballots continue to be counted. “The false projection of Joe Biden as the winner is based on results in four states that are far from final,” Trump campaign general counsel Matt Morgan said in a statement shortly after Decision Desk HQ called the race for Biden.