Georgia will recount all paper ballots cast in the November 3 presidential election by hand, the state's top election official said on Wednesday, a mammoth task that must be completed by November 20.
President-elect Joe Biden appears to have secured more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to gain the presidency on Saturday by winning Pennsylvania after four tense days of counting, delayed by a surge in mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic. Adding Georgia would only add to Mr Biden's margin of victory.
Republican President Donald Trump has refused to concede defeat and has said – without citing evidence – that the voting was marred by fraud.
The vote count in Georgia showed Mr Biden ahead of Mr Trump by just 14,101 votes out of some 5 million across the state. With the margin so small, a recount is needed, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a news conference.
Gallery: After the polls closed
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House/ Reuters -
A Republican observer, right, watches as Lehigh County workers count ballots in Allentown. AP -
A computer camera records the vote counting as a Lehigh County in Allentown, Pennsylvania. AP Photo -
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A worker prepares to take bags of ballots to be sorted and processed by the Los Angeles County Registrar. Keith Birmingham/The Orange County Register via AP -
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A poll worker tabulates ballots in Maricopa County. Bloomberg -
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Lehigh County worker uses a scanner to count ballots. AP -
Supporters of President Trump rally outside the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. EPA -
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Supporters of President Donald Trump hold up a flag during a protest against the election results at the Maricopa County Elections Department office in Phoenix, Arizona. AFP -
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden removes his face mask to speak at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware. AP Photo -
Donald Trump Jr., right, smiles along with his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle prior to a news conference at Georgia Republican Party headquarters in Atlanta. AP Photo -
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Lori Gibson, of Atlanta, listens to a speech by President Donald Trump prior to a press conference with Donald Trump Jr., at Georgia Republican Party Headquarters. AP Photo -
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House. Reuters -
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Clerk Geraldine Hernandez looks over ballots for mistakes are processed by the Los Angeles County Registrar in Pomona, California. AP Photo -
Empty ballots that were mailed by the deadline on election day are processed. Keith Birmingham/The Orange County Register via AP
"You actually have to do a full hand-by-hand recount of all because the margin is so close," Mr Raffensperger said. "We want to start this before the week is up."
"People will be working lots of overtime over the next coming weeks," he said.
Officials will work in pairs, sorting stacks of ballots into piles and counting them under the watch of observers from both political parties, Mr Raffensperger said. The piles will include ballots cast in person and by mail, he said.
"That's how it's going to be all the way through, and you're going to tally it all up. It's a big process," he said.
The scale of the endeavour is such that if counting takes place round-the-clock, officials will have to count more than 23,000 ballots an hour in the nine days before the deadline for the results to be certified.
A study by the non-partisan group Fair Vote found that out of 31 statewide recounts between 2000 and 2019, the outcome changed in only three of them. More often, the winner won by a tiny bit more. On average, they shifted the outcome by 0.024 per cent, Fair Vote found – a much smaller margin than Mr Trump would need. Mr Biden currently leads Mr Trump in Georgia by 49.5 per cent to 49.2 per cent.
Georgia's two US senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both Republicans, on Monday called on Mr Raffensperger, who is also a Republican, to resign over his management of the election. They presented no evidence of fraud, however.
