Georgia’s 3rd tally certified: Biden wins

ATLANTA — Georgia’s top elections official Monday recertified the state’s election results after a recount requested by President Donald Trump confirmed once again that President-elect Joe Biden won the state, and the governor recertified the state’s 16 presidential electors.

“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.

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.

Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, then recertified the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors — all prominent Democrats — as required by state law, spokesman Cody

Hall said. The recertification of results comes before the federal “safe harbor” deadline today; electors named by that date in accordance with state law cannot be disregarded by Congress.

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 affirmed Biden’s victory.

The total number of votes in the recount results certified Monday and posted on the secretary of state’s website was 766 fewer than the number certified when the ballots were first tallied after the election. Biden’s lead dropped from 12,670 to 11,779. That appears to be largely due to a discrepancy in Fulton County, the state’s most populous county that includes most of Atlanta.

Fulton County’s recount results showed 880 fewer votes than the results certified after election night, with an overwhelming majority of those votes coming from Biden’s total in the county. Gabriel Sterling, who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system, called the discrepancy in the county “a little worrisome” but said it’s a big county that’s had managerial issues. He also noted the difference isn’t enough to change the outcome of the election.

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.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten dismissed the lawsuit brought by Powell in an attempt to decertify Georgia’s election. He said overturning the election would have amounted to “judicial activism.”

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,” Batten, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said in court in Atlanta.

Powell’s lawsuit had combined a series of theories, many of them discredited, about how the election could have been rigged for Trump to lose in Georgia.

“The fraud that has happened here has destroyed any public confidence that the will of the people is reflected in their vote,” Powell told Batten.

The lawsuit alleged ballot-stuffing in Fulton County and vote-flipping in Ware County. It also submitted a statewide statistical analysis to suggest Trump should have received more votes. Powell also falsely claimed that Georgia’s voting equipment company has ties to Venezuela and could have altered results.

Election officials have said those accusations weren’t backed up by facts.

The chief investigator for the secretary of state’s office has said video surveillance in Fulton showed “there were no mystery ballots that were brought in from an unknown location and hidden under tables,” according to her sworn declaration. No voting machines were seized or votes flipped in Ware, and a recount corrected a tabulation error, the county’s elections director has said.

Additionally, 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.

Even as lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies have been rejected around the country, the president has continued to make repeated claims of widespread fraud. In Georgia, he has rained criticism on Raffensperger and Kemp, both fellow Republicans. Raffensperger has been steadfast in his defense of the integrity of the election in the state and Kemp has said he has no power to intervene in elections.

“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 at Monday’s news conference.

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 Sunday also requested a special session, Kemp and Duncan put out a statement saying that convening a legislative session to select a different slate of presidential electors would not be allowed under state or federal law.

BIDEN TEAM FILLS OUT

Separately, Biden named California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as his Health and Human Services secretary Monday and filled out a team that will lead the incoming administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Becerra will also be tasked with expanding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, one of Biden’s key health goals beyond curbing the virus outbreak.

Biden also announced he was returning Vivek Murthy to the role of surgeon general, a job he held under President Barack Obama, but this time his role will be expanded to include managing the federal response to the coronavirus.

Murthy will work closely with Jeff Zients, one of Biden’s transition co-chairs, who was named coordinator of the covid-19 response and counselor to the president. Zients was a top economic adviser to Obama and is credited with reviving the troubled Obamacare enrollment website. Former White House and Pentagon senior adviser Natalie Quillian will serve as Zients’ deputy coordinator.

Rochelle Walensky, the infectious diseases chief at Massachusetts General Hospital, was named director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Biden also named Marcella Nunez-Smith as Covid-19 Equity Task Force chair, a new job that will coordinate the government’s response to the virus. Nunez-Smith is an associate professor at the Yale School of Medicine and cochair of the Biden transition’s coronavirus advisory board.

Dr. Anthony Fauci will keep his post as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases but also serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser on the coronavirus.

“This trusted and accomplished team of leaders will bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced — getting the pandemic under control,” Biden said in a statement released by his transition team.

Fauci, speaking to CNN on Monday, lauded Biden’s picks. “I’ve had considerable interactions with all of these individuals and they are outstanding,” he said. He said he wasn’t yet sure what shape Biden’s coronavirus task force would take, and that his role wouldn’t be “substantially different” from his current one.

Biden is due to hold an event today unveiling some of his health team, a transition official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the event hasn’t yet been announced.