(Headline USA) Georgia‘s top elections official on Monday recertified the state’s election results after a recount requested by President Donald Trump confirmed once again that Democrat Joe Biden won the state, his office said.
“We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said during a news conference at the state Capitol.
However, the recount failed to match required signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes, so the repeat tallies included recounting of what the Trump campaign maintains are illegal votes. His legal team has called for a full audit.
Also, the adverse court decision came despite revelations of counting suspicious suitcases of ballots at State Farm Arena overnight after Election Day by four workers, after GOP observers were told to go home for the night because counting was complete.
Georgia law allows a losing candidate to request a recount if the margin between the candidates is within 0.5%.
Trump requested the recount after the results certified by Raffensperger showed that Biden led by a margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25% of the roughly 5 million ballots cast.
During the recount, which was done using scanners that read and tally the votes, there were discrepancies in vote totals in some counties.
Since the results of a recount become the official results, those counties had to recertify their results.
Once that was done the secretary of state recertified the statewide results, his office said in a news release. Next, the governor will have to recertify the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors.
The recount was the third tally of votes in the presidential race in the state.
After the initial count following Election Day, Raffensperger selected the presidential race for an audit required by state law.
The tight margin meant the audit required the roughly 5 million votes in that contest to be recounted by hand, he said. That count also concluded with a Biden victory.
Also Monday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed on behalf of would-be Republican presidential electors by former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
The suit alleged widespread fraud and sought to decertify the results of the presidential race in Georgia, among other things.
In the lawsuit, “the plaintiffs essentially ask the court for perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election. They want this court to substitute its judgment for that of 2 and a half million Georgia voters who voted for Joe Biden and this I am unwilling to do,” U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten as he dismissed the suit following a hearing.
Powell said she would appeal.
It “will proceed as fast as possible to the Supreme Court,” she told The Epoch Times.
Separately, an election challenge filed Friday by Trump, his campaign and Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer was rejected by the Fulton County Superior Court because the paperwork was improperly completed and it lacked the appropriate filing fees.
“I know there are people that are convinced the election was fraught with problems, but the evidence, the actual evidence, the facts tell us a different story,” Raffensperger said during the news conference Monday.
Hours before coming to Georgia for a rally Saturday night, Trump called Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session. The governor declined.
In a tweet Sunday, Trump criticized Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan for inaction and again called for a special session.
After four Republican state lawmakers on Sunday also requested a special session, Kemp and Duncan put out a statement saying that convening a special session to select a different slate of presidential electors would not be allowed under state or federal law.
Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.
