Ladies And Gentlemen, We Got Us A Georgia Recount!

Reason? How about 14,000 reasons!

While Joe Biden already has enough electoral votes to be president-elect, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced yesterday that his state would conduct a full recount, by hand, of all the state's more than 5 million votes in the presidential race. Biden leads Donald Trump in Georgia by more than 14,000 votes, making Republicans very unhappy with Raffensperger for not rigging the election in their favor.

Raffensperger said at a news conference announcing the recount, "With the margin being so close, it will require a full, by-hand recount in each county. [...] This will help build confidence."

So like taking off and nuking the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

And since the election would otherwise be mostly finished by tomorrow, the deadline for counties to certify their vote counts, a hand recount will add more time for Donald Trump to claim the election isn't quite over and that he can't possibly allow Biden to move ahead with the transition. Not that Raffensperger said anything of the sort.

So far, Raffensperger said, 97 of 159 counties have certified their election results before the Friday deadline; he said he hopes to get the by-hand count started by the end of the week as well. The state must certify its election by November 20, so we're guessing it will take until then to complete the hand recount.

Monday, US Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue accused Raffensperger of not doing enough to make them win, saying in a statement that he had "failed to deliver honest and transparent elections. He has failed the people of Georgia, and he should step down immediately." They didn't actually manage to provide any evidence that Raffensperger had mismanaged the election. But both races will need to be resolved in a January 5 runoff election that will decide control of the Senate, so obviously Raffensperger let too many of the wrong people vote.

Also, ha ha Herman, you grifters, the recount will only be for the presidential race, not the Senate election.

ABC News notes that the hand recount will involve two people examining each ballot; Raffensberger gave assurances that both political parties would be able to have observers for the process. And unlike the wierdass Florida recount of 2000, there won't be any hanging chads or anything like that:

In a follow-up interview with ABC News' "Start Here" podcast, Raffensperger told host Brad Mielke that officials won't be arguing over ovals or X's while examining all the ballots. What the counters see is a computer printout that clearly says the voter's candidate choice.

"So it's very obvious," Raffensperger said. "That's the new system we put into place this year.

Those are the hybrid paper-and-electronic voting machines that caused so many long lines in Georgia's clusterfuck primary back in June. Unlike the touchscreen machines they replaced, these new ones produce a paper trail that makes a physical recount possible.

But wait! The delays aren't necessarily finished, either! Once Georgia actually certifies its election results on November 20, the Trump campaign could still request a recount if the election is closer than five percentage points, although under Georgia law, that recount would be done by machine, and would be faster.

And now that there's going to be a hand recount, that will offer as much as a full week of opportunities for wingnuts to swarm counting locations and complain they're not allowed inside. Not to mention the many chances for rightwing media to launch a whole new round of completely fake claims that election workers are rigging the already-settled election for Biden. That should be very very healthy for democracy, too, the end.

[ CNN / WSJ / ABC News ]

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