Incumbent President Donald Trump has claimed if only “legally cast ballots” are counted in Georgia he will come from behind to win the state.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 US election by several news outlets on Sunday after winning crucial battleground Pennsylvania.
However since then, Trump has refused to accept the result, instead launching legal action in several important states and claiming voter fraud – despite lacking credible evidence to support the claims.
He alleged he would easily win the race for the White House if not for the flood of “illegal” votes.
On Tuesday, Georgia’s Governor Republican Brian Kemp took to Twitter to say he would ensure the election in the state is fair.
“Georgia’s election result will include legally cast ballots – and ONLY legally cast ballots. Period.”
Trump reshared the tweet, adding: “This is good news, it means I won!”
This is good news, it means I won!
cc: @RepDougCollins @SecretarySonny https://t.co/zO4AlPF8O0— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2020
Biden is currently ahead in the state with 49.5 percent, compared to Trump’s 49.25 percent with 98 percent of the votes counted according to the New York Times.
Trump would need over 12,000 extra votes to take the lead however Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said his office had not seen any evidence of widespread voter fraud or irregularities in Georgia.
“We’ve not seen any get to our office yet,” he told CNN’s John Berman.
“And certainly we’ll make sure that every sort of legal opportunity to make sure that – if there’s an issue out there, we want to make sure we understand it, investigate it and be able to make sure we were able to rectify it.
“We’ve not had any sort of credible incidents raised to our level yet and so we’ll continue to make sure that the opportunity to make sure every legal ballot is counted is there, but you know at this point, we’ve not seen any sort of credible examples.”
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state told BBC he is “sure there was” illegal voting – despite not providing evidence – but says it probably won’t be enough to hand Trump the state.
“My office is investigating all of it,” he said.
“Does it rise to the numbers or margin necessary to change the outcome to where President Trump is given Georgia’s electoral votes? That is unlikely.”
