Extract from ABC News
Joe Biden has won Georgia and its 16 electoral votes, an extraordinary victory for Democrats who pushed to expand their electoral map through the Sun Belt.
Key points:
- The Associated Press called the win for Biden in Georgia after a hand-tallied audit of ballots
- The audit confirmed a winning margin of roughly 12,000 votes for Biden, having led by 14,000 before the hand tally
- The president-elect has called Donald Trump's refusal to concede an act of "incredible irresponsibility"
The win by Mr Biden pads his electoral college margin of victory over President Donald Trump.
Mr Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election on November 7 after flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to the Democrats’ column.
Mr Biden now has 306 electoral votes to Mr Trump’s 232.
Mr Trump won Georgia by 5 percentage points in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In 2020, Democrats had focused heavily on the state, seeing it in play two years after Democrat Stacey Abrams narrowly lost the governor's race.
The ABC has been guided by the projections of syndicated news agency Associated Press for calling states. Until now, AP has not called Georgia as it is the agency's practice not to call a race that is or is likely to become subject to a recount.
The AP called the race for Mr Biden on Thursday after state election officials there said hand-tallied audit of ballots cast in the presidential race confirmed the former vice president led Mr Trump by roughly 12,000 votes out of nearly 5 million counted.
Gabriel Sterling, who oversaw the implementation of the state's new voting system, said the result of the hand audit found Mr Biden leading Trump by a little more than 12,000 votes. Going into the hand tally, Mr Biden led Mr Trump by a margin of about 14,000 votes.
Previously uncounted ballots discovered in several counties during the hand count reduced that margin, while other counties found slight differences in results as they did their hand counts. State election officials had consistently said that was to be expected, and stressed the audit was not a response to any supposedly suspected problems with the state’s results or an official recount request.
"Every single vote was touched by a human audit team and counted," Mr Sterling said.
Both of Georgia's Senate seats were on the ballot this year, further boosting the state's political profile as well as spending by outside groups seeking to influence voters. Those two races are headed to a January runoff.
Georgia had not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992.
Overall, demographic trends show that the state's electorate is becoming younger and more diverse each year. Like other metro areas, Atlanta's suburbs have also moved away from Republicans. In 2016, Hillary Clinton flipped both Cobb and Gwinnett counties, which Mr Biden won.
In 2018, Democrat Stacey Abrams galvanised black voters in her bid to become the country's first African American woman to lead a state, a campaign she narrowly lost.
Many political analysts say it's not a question of if, rather when, Georgia becomes a swing state. That much was clear in the closing weeks of the campaign as Mr Biden; his running mate Senator Kamala Harris; and former president Barack Obama barnstormed the state. Mr Trump, too, visited the state to play defence.
The question that remains is whether Mr Biden's win marks a major shift, or a temporary revolt by suburban voters who disliked Mr Trump and who will return to the Republican fold after he's gone.
Mr Biden said on Thursday (local time) that Mr Trump's refusal to accept the election results has left Americans "witnessing incredible irresponsibility".
"Incredibly damaging messages are being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions," Mr Biden said, adding that Mr Trump's actions in Michigan were particularly troubling.
"What the President's doing now is going to be another incident where he will go down in history as being one of the most irresponsible presidents."
What happens after the recount?
The states have until December 8 to settle any disputes over the election result, including recounts and court contests.
Once that deadline has passed, each state's electors have until December 14 to vote by paper ballot.These are then counted and the electors sign six Certificates of the Vote.
Those certificates, along with other official papers, are sent by registered mail to various officials, including the president of the Senate by December 23.
The Lower House and the Senate will hold a joint session to count those electoral votes on January 6.
When a candidate receives 270 or more electoral votes, the President of the Senate will announce the results.
Inauguration day is on January 20, when the winning candidate will be officially sworn in as president.
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