Unless you live under a rock that has been thrown into the conservative fairytale land where rampant voter fraud exists in the U.S., you’ve likely heard that y’all’s soon-to-be ousted president and his band of cowardly Republican beyotch-babies are refusing to concede that President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential race and are desperately clinging to baseless assertions that illegal votes being counted are why Trump-the-commander-we-dumped lost the race. (I know that’s a long-ass sentence but damn if it wasn’t fun to write.) Well, Georgia’s secretary of state appears to have decided to take right-winger claims of election fraud seriously, as he announced Wednesday that there will be a manual hand recount of all ballots cast in the Peach State.
CBS News reports that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) has been under pressure by Georgia Republicans to do something about the state’s massive voting irregularities and gross election mismanagement. Can they prove the mismanagement exists? Nope. Are they speculating based on bullshit allegations made by Trump and his McDonald’s orange Hi-C-flavored tears? Probably. Still, Raffensperger insists that this is merely a risk-limiting audit done to ensure that idiots...I mean, American citizens don’t lose confidence in the democratic process.
“This will help build confidence,” he said at a press conference. “It will be an audit, a recount and a re-canvas all at once. It will be a heavy lift but we will work with the counties to get this done in time for our state certification.”
From CBS:
Ninety-seven counties in the state have sent in final numbers to the state, Raffensperger said, and the current margin of votes between President-elect Biden and President Trump is 14,111. He vowed that his office has been investigating, and will continue to investigate, all instances of voting irregularities.
“Every legal vote will count,” he said.
Raffensperger was joined at the press conference Wednesday by elections directors from across the state, and he praised them for their work ensuring all legal votes are counted.
“They executed their responsibilities and they did their job.” he said. “This is a process. It is a process defined by law.”
So basically, Raffensperger is out here like: “You guys did a wonderful job and proved yourself to be competent election officials, but we’re still going to doublecheck your homework in case it turns out you’re actually stupid AF and can’t do poll work correctly for shit.”
To be fair, Raffensperger has been saying since last week that due to tight vote margins between Biden and Bumped...I mean, Trump, a hand recount was likely to happen. According to CNBC, the Trump campaign and Georgia Republican Party sent him a letter Tuesday requesting a manual hand recount. Of course, Raffensperger claims that letter had nothing to do with his decision, telling reporters Wednesday that the recount is simply “what makes the most sense.”
“With the national significance of this race and the closeness of this race, we have to run a statewide audit,” he said, CNN reports.
Raffensperger said that state officials will work with county officials to complete the recount in time to meet the Nov. 20 deadline for certifying statewide election results. According to CNN, he said that after the certification is done, if there is a candidate within the .5 percent margin, they will still be entitled to request another recount but that count will be done by machines instead of by hand.