The Trump campaign has called on Georgia’s top elections official to take steps related to the planned vote recount to ensure “confidence in our electoral process,” including verifying voter eligibility and a full hand-count of all ballots.
Collins asked for a full comparison of absentee ballots cast and in-person and provisional ballots cast, and for carrying out a voter eligibility check to make sure no felons or other ineligible individuals cast a vote in the state.
“Most importantly, the Secretary of State should announce a full hand-count of every ballot cast in each and every county due to widespread allegations of voter irregularities, issues with voting machines, and poll watcher access,” Collins added.
“It may be possible that observers left at the time the majority of the staff left, but from the information we have, the processing area was never closed to observers,” said Jessica Corbitt, a spokesperson for Fulton County.
Collins called on Raffensperger to act on the request voluntarily.
“We can—and we will—petition for this in court after statewide certification is completed if the Secretary of State fails to act, but we are hopeful he will preemptively take this action today to ensure every Georgian has confidence in our electoral process,” Collins said.
Raffensperger rejected demands that he resign, saying “the voters of Georgia hired me, and the voters will be the one to fire me.”
“We are going to find that people did illegally vote,” Sterling said, according to The Associated Press. “That’s going to happen. They’re going to be double voters. There are going to be people who ... didn’t have the qualifications of a registered voter to vote in the state. That will be found. Is it 10,353? Unlikely.”
As of Monday, Democratic challenger Joe Biden was leading Trump by 10,353 votes out of nearly 5 million ballots cast, a lead of around 0.2 percentage points. The law in Georgia permits candidates to request a recount if the margin is 0.5 percentage points or less.
Electoral research carried out by The Associated Press found there have been at least 31 statewide recounts since 2000, with three of those changing the outcome of the election.