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Top election official in Georgia says he will certify Biden’s win in that state

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A top election official in the State of Georgia in the US says he will certify that Joe Biden won the state’s Presidential election after a hand-recount failed to significantly alter the Democrat’s winning margin there.

The hand recount in the traditional Republican stronghold affirmed Biden’s win by more than 12 000 votes. This as the campaign of President Donald Trump and the Republic Party continue to ventilate unsubstantiated claims about electoral fraud, claiming it was nationally coordinated to hand President-elect Joe Biden victory. The allegations from the President’s lawyers are just the latest effort in a weeks-long campaign by the losing side to subvert the election result that has seen over two-dozen lawsuits in multiple states.

The President and his allies losing three court rulings on Thursday alone,  one in Georgia, another in Pennsylvania and Arizona.  This means some 29 lawsuits and counting have either been lost, dismissed, or withdrawn in the series of post-election cases initiated by the losing side. And with the Georgia hand-recount affirming the Biden win in a state that hasn’t voted Democrat since 1992, the President’s options, both legal and political, are dwindling.

“Like other Republicans, I’m disappointed our candidate didn’t win Georgia’s electoral votes. Close elections sow distrust. People feel their side was cheated. We saw this from the Democrats in 2018 and we see this from Republicans today,” says the state’s top election official,  Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Raffensperger, who happens to be a Republican, has received death threats and come under intense pressure from members of his own party to resign but has held firm.

“Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie. As Secretary of State, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the Secretary of State’s office or of courts or of either campaign. I want to do everything I can to build the voter’s trust in our electoral system.”

While evidence of widespread electoral fraud remains slim to negligible at best, the President and his top surrogates continue to make baseless and wild claims about how the election was rigged, often pointing to Democratic cities with large black populations who turned out in their numbers to support Joe Biden.

Attorney Rudy Giuliani says, “The company counting our vote with control over our vote is owned by two Venezuelans. Who were allies of Chavez or present allies of Maduro with a company whose chairman is a close associate and business partner of George Soros, the biggest donor to the Democratic Party, the biggest donor to Antifa and the biggest donor to Black Lives Matter. My goodness, what do we have to do to get you to give our people the truth?”

The lasted debunked conspiracy from Giuliani and his team that voting machines used in multiple states were manipulated to switch votes for the President in favour of his challenger.

Sidney Powell is part of Trump’s legal team, “One of its most characteristic features is its ability to flip votes. It can set and run an algorithm that probably ran all over the country to take a certain percentage of votes from President Trump and flip them to President Biden, which we might never have uncovered had the votes for President Trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm that had been plugged into the system.”

According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency that called the November 3rd election “the most secure in American history’ adding that there is no evidence that any voting system deleted, lost or changed votes.

President-elect Joe Biden asked to weigh in, “I think they’re witnessing an incredible irresponsibility, incredibly damaging message is being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions. And I think it is, well, I don’t know his motive, but I just think it’s totally irresponsible.”

(Journalist: Are you concerned he may succeed? The people may question the legitimacy of your administration?)

No, I’m not concerned. The vast majority of the American people… all the polling data is indicated, although the Republicans who worry about it, it’s higher. But you have over 78% of the American people believe it’s without question, it’s legitimate. And I just think it’s… and I think most of the Republicans, it sends a horrible message about who we are as a country.”

States have until December 8th to meet a deadline for resolving all electoral disputes and seating electors to the Electoral College. Those electors then choose the next President of the United States on December 14th based on who won the popular vote in each state,  for example, the 16 votes or electors in the State of Michigan which Biden won by over 150 000 votes. With reports now that President Trump has invited Republican lawmakers from that state to the White House on Friday in what would appear to be an effort to seat electors who might be willing to ignore the popular vote in the state in Trump’s favour.

At least that’s the working theory for now.

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