ATLANTA (AP) – County election workers across Georgia began a machine countdown of roughly 5 million votes cast in the state presidential race on Tuesday, days after the hand count was completed, confirming the leadership of President-elect Joe Biden.
The recount was requested by President Donald Trump after verified results showed that he lost the state by 12,670 votes, 0.25%, to Democrat Joe Biden. Under state law, a losing candidate may request a recalculation if the coverage is less than 0.5%. Trump’s Saturday campaign formally called for a recount.
The counties were able to begin recounting the machine at 9 a.m. on Tuesday and must pack up by 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 2.
Some counties only planned to get equipment testing on Tuesday, with actual counting starting on Wednesday. With the expected interruption of Thanksgiving, the Secretary of State instructed the counties to make the tests public so that observers from political parties and members of the interested public could plan their plans.
Last Thursday, election officials announced the results the amount of hands achieved in the presidential race that resulted from an audit but cannot be considered an official recount under state law. A day after Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the aggregation had strengthened Biden’s leadership, he confirmed the election results.. Republican Governor Brian Kemp then certified the slate of the state’s 16 presidential voters, a group of prominent Democrats.
According to the rules of the State Electoral Board, the official recount must be done by machine, especially for high-speed scanners, which read and tabulate the votes.
Before starting the recalculation, election workers should test the scanners to make sure they are counting accurately. To do this, 100 ballot papers are created – with 75 touch-screen voting machines and 25 hand-marked – and these ballot papers are counted by hand before they are read through a scanner. If the number scanned is the same as the manual value, it means that the scanner is working properly and you can start scanning all the votes again.
State election officials said it was possible that the results of the recalculation might be slightly different from the original amount, but said it was very unlikely that it would be enough to change the overall election result.
Biden’s campaign echoed that in a Tuesday call with reporters.
“Georgian voters have elected Joe Biden as their next president,” said Patrick Moore, a lawyer for biden’s campaign. “We are confident that this second recount, which actually took place for the third time when the votes were counted, will simply confirm Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.”
