Georgia Secretary of State Announces Hand Recount of Presidential Race

ATLANTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday that the state will conduct a hand recount of all ballots cast in last week’s presidential contest.
The announcement came during a news conference at which Raffensperger continued to deflect pressure from fellow Georgia Republicans who made unsubstantiated claims of voting irregularities in the race.
On Monday, Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, both of whom now face January runoff elections, called for his resignation and claimed the secretary had mismanaged all of the state’s elections.
On Wednesday, Raffensperger said the manual hand recount “will help build confidence” in the outcome of the race, in which President-elect Joe Biden maintains a slim, 14,112 vote lead over President Trump.
“It will be an audit, a recount and a recanvas all at once,” Raffensperger said at the news conference. “It will be a heavy lift.”
The secretary has already flatly rejected Loeffler and Perdue’s demands for resignation, telling reporters that the voters of Georgia had hired him, “and the voters will be the ones to fire me.”
“As secretary of state, I’ll continue to fight every day to ensure fair elections in Georgia, that every legal vote counts, and that illegal votes don’t count,” he said.
In The News
Health
Voting
State News

WASHINGTON - It’s hard to believe it’s almost that time of year again, but on Monday came word that the peak bloom for the cherry blossoms ringing the Tidal Basin in Washington is currently expected to occur April 2-5. That means the most vivid of blooms... Read More

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Josh Venable, a longtime Michigan GOP operative and chief of staff to former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, can trace the arc of the state's Republican Party clearly."This was the state where to be Republican was defined by Gerald Ford and George... Read More

NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. fought for a year and a half to get access to former President Donald Trump's tax records.Now, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, he will soon have them. But what will that mean for... Read More

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — For Native Americans, Deb Haaland is more than an elected official on track to become the first Indigenous secretary of the Interior Department. She is a sister, an auntie and a fierce pueblo woman whose political stances have been molded by her... Read More

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia lawmakers gave final approval Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in the Commonwealth. The legislation now heads to Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, who has said he will sign it into law, making Virginia the 23rd state to stop executions.... Read More

The decision by the online brokerage firm Robinhood to impose restrictions on customer trading at the high point of last month’s online trading frenzy was brought under scrutiny at Thursday’s hearing of the House Financial Services Committee. While Robinhood insists that its decision did not favor... Read More