US: Georgia to recount by hand millions of ballots

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - The American state of Georgia announced Wednesday it would conduct a full-by-hand recount of ballots cast in the 2020 US presidential race as outgoing President Donald Trump continues to claim vote fraud allegations.

Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger claimed the recount process will be undertaken in all 159 counties to "help build confidence."

"It will be an audit, a recount and a recanvas all at once," he said during a news conference. "It will be a heavy lift."

He noted that nearly 100 counties have sent in results and President-elect Joe Biden currently leads Trump by 14,000 votes.

"Every legal vote will count," he said. "It is a process defined by law."

His remarks came one day after the Trump campaign and the state’s Republican Party sent a letter to Raffensperger requesting a manual recount before certification of Georgia's election results.

Georgia's Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler urged Raffensperger to resign Monday, accusing him of failing “to deliver honest and transparent elections.”

Control of the Senate also boiled down to two Georgia runoff elections in January, after Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan won reelection on Wednesday, giving GOP 50 seats in the upper chamber compared to Democrats' 48.

If GOP secures at least one of those, they would keep the majority, but if Democrats win both races, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tie-breaking vote.

While Biden is set to work on forming his Cabinet and his transition team, Trump vows legal action for so-far unsubstantiated allegations of widespread voter fraud, demanding recounts in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But the process rarely leads to a change in a declared victor.