Trump campaign files for recount of votes in Georgia
The Trump Campaign has filed a petition for recount of votes in Georgia, days after US President-elect Joe Biden wrested the Republican stronghold by a little over 1,2000 votes.
Democrat Biden became the first Democrat to have won the key battleground state since 1992 after a hand recount of nearly five million votes, that lasted for several days.
Georgia hadn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992.
In case of a recount, election officials in Georgia will have to re-scan the five million hand-recounted and audited legal ballots.
"We are focused on ensuring that every aspect of Georgia State Law and the US Constitution are followed so that every legal vote is counted.
"President Trump and his campaign continue to insist on an honest recount in Georgia, which has to include signature matching and other vital safeguards," the Trump campaign said in a late-night statement on Saturday.
"Without signature matching, this recount would be a sham and again allow for illegal votes to be counted. If there is no signature matching, this would be as phony as the initial vote count and recount," said the statement issued by the legal team of the campaign.
"Let's stop giving the people false results. There must be a time when we stop counting illegal ballots. Hopefully it is coming soon," said the campaign, a day after Georgia Secretary of State, who is also from the same Republican Party, officially certified the election results which was narrowly won by Biden.
After initial counting of votes in the state, Biden was leading by about 14,000 votes, which prompted the Georgia Secretary of State to order a hand recount which reduced Biden's lead slightly to 12,284.
Georgia has 16 electoral college votes.
President-elect Biden has secured 306 electoral votes as compared to Trump's 232.
To win the race to the White House, the successful candidate should have at least 270 electoral votes out of the 538-member Electoral College. Trump won Georgia by 5 percentage points in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Trump has refused to concede the election results and has filed multiple lawsuits challenging poll results in several states. "Can't accept the results of an election with hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes cast, enough to easily flip the Election.
You're just unhappy that I'm bringing the troops back home where they belong!" Trump said in a tweet Saturday night.
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