Trump campaign formally requests Georgia recount after Georgia Governor Certifies Election Results
The legal team of President Donald Trump formally requested for recount of votes in Georgia on Saturday, a day after the state moved to certify its election results favoring Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden.
“Today, the Trump campaign filed a petition for recount in Georgia. We are focused on ensuring that every aspect of Georgia State Law and the US Constitution are followed so that every legal vote is counted,” the Trump Campaign said in a statement on Saturday.
https://twitter.com/TeamTrump/status/1330351373523824642
“President Trump and his campaign continue to insist on an honest recount in Georgia, which has to include signature matching and other vital safeguards,” it added, noting that “without signature matching, this recount would be a sham and again allow for illegal votes to be counted.”
“If there is no signature matching, this would be as phony as the initial vote count and recount. Let’s stop giving the People false results. There must be a time when we stop counting illegal ballots. Hopefully it is coming soon,” the statement added.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger certified the Peach State’s election results on Friday, which had the former Obama VP beating President Trump by a mere 12,670 votes or 0.25% out of the recorded 5 million votes cast.
Governor Brian Kemp then certified Georgia’s 16 presidential electors — but not without raising concerns over the signatures. In his announcement, Governor Kemp did not clearly endorse the results of the elections and said instead that 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.”
On Saturday, however, Secretary Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, penned an opinion in the Washington Post saying that “Georgia’s voting system has never been more secure or trustworthy.”
Georgia law allows a campaign to request for a recount when the voting results have a margin difference of less than 0.5%.
The recount would then be done using scanners that read and tabulate the votes.
Biden’s campaign said another recount would “simply reaffirm Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia a third time.”
“Last week’s recount reaffirmed what we already knew: Georgia voters selected Joe Biden to be their next president. As the secretary of state said, there is no reason to believe there are widespread errors or fraud and the Trump campaign has no evidence to back up their baseless claims,” said Jaclyn Rothenberg, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign.
The incumbent Republican president gained almost 900 votes in Georgia after the historic full-hand recount and the Trump campaign has also insisted on doing a signature matching.
“The recount being done in Georgia will tell us nothing because these fraudulent ballots will just be counted again because they wouldn’t provide the signatures to match the ballots. So, it means nothing,” Trump’s lawyer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani earlier said.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1329871775707107335
“The Governor of Georgia, and Secretary of State, refuse to let us look at signatures which would expose hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots, and give the Republican Party and me, David Perdue, and perhaps Kelly Loeffler, a BIG VICTORY…,” President Trump said Friday.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1329871776889925636
“Why won’t they do it, and why are they so fast to certify a meaningless tally?”
The recount is expected to start next week, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
