Georgia Secretary of State’s Office says 2020 election has been certified

ATLANTA — Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has officially certified the results of the Nov. 3 election.

Most counties reported little to no change in the ballot count. There were about 30 counties statewide that reported differences in the double digits or more.

The largest difference came from four metro area counties: Floyd with 2,464 additional votes, Gwinnett with 1,642, Dekalb with 732 votes and Fulton with another 634.

Now the secretary of state wants to change the process for future elections and replace the controversial signature match.

President Donald Trump once again Friday alleged, without any evidence, fraud in absentee votes here in Georgia in a post quickly flagged by Twitter.

For days Raffensperger has defended the security of Georgia’s signature match for absentee ballots, but Friday he proposed doing away with it in the future and replacing it with driver license check instead.

“We can move from a subjective system to an objective system,” Raffensperger said.

That proposal quickly drew criticism. The President of the Georgia NAACP, James Woodall, told Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray that he sees it as an attempt at voter suppression.

“Those are intentional efforts to disenfranchise Georgia voters and that is not ok,” Woodall said.

The results of Georgia’s first ever statewide risk limiting audit are nearly identical to the election counts with only 0.1% difference between the hand count and the machine count.

Dekalb and Gwinnett Counties did have slightly larger difference than the rest of the state, but still under 1%.

GEORGIA VOTER GUIDE:

• Key Dates for 2020 Runoff Elections in Georgia
• These are the 7 races that are in a runoff in Georgia
• Did you know? You can still register to vote in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs
• How to vote by absentee ballot for Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoff elections

Dekalb said their problem was an election manager, who was fired on Friday over “blatantly disregarded required processes.”

“Working as an engineer all 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,” Raffensperger said.

Now that the results have been certified, by Georgia law, President Donald Trump can request a recount because the election was closer than 0.5%. That would be a machine recount.

Gray contacted the Trump campaign Friday to see if they intend on asking for a recount, but so far has not heard back from anyone.

Gov. Brian Kemp has until Saturday at 5 p.m. to certify the state’s 16 electors. Those are the ones who will officially cast the state’s vote for Biden when the electoral college meets in December.

He said in a news conference Friday evening, saying he will stick to state law and uphold the election results handed to him by Raffensperger.

RAW VIDEO: Secretary of State says vote count is 'correct'