Georges secretary of state said today that there will be a hand recount in the president ial race in his state. Right now, joe biden leads by about 14,000 votes in georgia. The briefing was held in atlanta. Good morning, everyone. Is november 11. Before i get started talking about why we are here today, i would like to get a heartfelt to all ofthanksgiving those that gave their lives for this country, all those people that continue to serve. This is a special day, this is a holiday. Growing up, my dad served in world war ii, and the navy, and then we had korea, vietnam, and people serving today. And we canrget, never give them enough banks for what they have done for this nation. In one of the things that they right, ouris for our freedom to have free and fair elections. So that is, at the end of the day, what we really need to be as we work finishing up and closing out the election that we just had. Also want to give a heartfelt thanks to the men and women who are standing with me here today. Election directors from across georgia. Counties,sent large small counties, diverse counties. They are from all over the state of georgia. They and their staff are the ones that do the hard work on the ground, making sure that all legal votes will be counted. Their job is hard. They execute their responsibilities, and they did their job. This is a process. Bya process defined law. These men and women will continue to follow the law and count every legal vote. Countiesnds today, 97 have sent their final numbers in. At 14,111 stands between the president and senator biden. Vice president biden. My office will continue to investigate each and every instance of illegal voting, double voting, people voting out of state, and if you report it, we will investigate it. Every legal vote will count. We will continue to follow and enforce the law. Now, lets look at the next steps. We are currently looking at having a statewide runoff on december 1 and another on january 5. This is an untenable situation for these men and women to try to run both of these elections. With that, under my powers under the health emergency, i am moving the date of the december 1 election with the federal runoff on january 5. This will protect the integrity of both elections and the arrow election administration. It has the added benefit of saving taxpayers millions of dollars. The reason we have so many of is a direct function of covid. This is a reality. The next step in the current election process is getting the final county certifications in. We will then move to the risklimiting audit, or rla. Make00 p. M. Today, i will the official designation of which race will be the subject of the rla. At that time i will designate that the rla will be the president ial race. With the margin being so close, it will require a full, by hand recount in each county. This will help build confidence. There will be an audit, a recount, and a reall at once. It will be a heavy lift, but we will work with the counties to get this done in time for state certification. Many of these workers have been doing plenty of overtime. We have all worked hard to bring fair and accurate counts to ensure that the will of the voters is reflected in the final count and that every voter can have confidence in the outcome, whether their candidate won or lost. Thank you for coming today. Do we have any questions . [inaudible] well, because we now have that verifiable ballot, we are going to have something to count instead of just pressing a button. So we will be counting every single piece of paper, every single lawfully cast illegal ballots. Illegal ballots. Whoever they voted for president. The written word. Yes, we will. As i said, we will be working a lot of overtime in the coming week. They will be very pleased with those paychecks if they are getting overtime. [inaudible] be coming out we will determine at some point, having additional workers, we will be looking at that and that will be the election directors in each county. They will actually handle their recount. Y i thought originally it was supposed to be looking at a small segment of the vote. Thats what is really interesting when you start digging into the probability. They have pulled out 10,000 votes. We plowed 100,000, it says this person wins. Mathematically, you actually have to do a recount because the margin is so close. Just the mathematics, the statistics, the probabilities that we use that are taking that stance. Youhere was another race, could do that and it would just be a sample size. But you cant do that when it is that close. This race has national importance, we get that, we understand that. Process, wee understand the significant not just georgia, that for every single american. At the end of the day, we do the count and we can answer the question exactly, what was the final margin in this race. [inaudible] absolutely. We can open a transparent in fact, we have had multiple reallys with the press, digging into the weeds. If you have any information about illegal voting or voter fraud, bring that to our attention and we will investigate every case that we hear. Have you found anything with that particular allegation so far . We will look at those records and we will start digging into those. Lessnt a hand recount be accurate than a computer recount . Are you concerned about accuracy . Is what the numbers take us to when we are following the process. And is it reasonable to believe that the vocal change . Chance that the outcome or the results of the president ial election would change as a result . Is it possible to have 14,000 votes flip . Me to makesking predictions and we are going to deal in facts. We are talking about possibilities. I will get out my calculator and get back to you. I cant do that offthecuff. Is this count, is there one recount, if you will . Certified. The candidate that is within 1 will be entitled to a recount but that would be a scanned recount because that is state law. We are going to continue to work with the counties, the van is there deadline. That is the process that we have in place. We had great cooperation and dedication from the county Election Officials. Thats why we have so many here. We have professionals out there. At the end of the day, i know that there is some folks back here who vote this way, that way, some go this way or that way. At the end of the day, they are following a process. What they want is they never want you to be able to question the results. We want everyone to understand we are following a process. Integrity still matters. We will continue with every county that we have and we will roll to that. Is there an estimate of how long this will take . It will take every bit of the time we have left, for sure. Is november 20. You have been saying for more than a year that we should absolutely trust the vote, why is a recount necessary . Statistically, we have a team of people, National Experts that have worked on this in several other states. It is not just a decision we make lightly. We have been working with them for several months, and we just follow the science, we follow the numbers. That is where it leads us, to count every single ballots by hand. [inaudible] they are still required. About 97 counties already. I will talk to legal about that, we want to start this before the week is up. We understand there is an awful lot to do. Could you elaborate again on the timeline . What is being counted, exactly . The ballot that you had, whether it was an absentee ballot or if it was voted in person like i did, we will look at that ballot, who did you want, and they are going to go through that and they will have two people do another count. They will put them out in stacks and make sure that they look at the end. You just keep on rolling through. It is a big process. Process. E an accurate im sure that they will be plenty of oversight, we want to make sure that both parties have the option to observe this because we understand that the stakes are high. Rla on a president ial race specifically . I dont really know. 50 states, 50 different election laws. What do you do if they dont match the computer count . It becomes the full recount. That is what we are going to do and certify november 20. Count,uld be the last the most accurate counts. It is an audit, it is all in one. Audit, recanvas, and recount all in one. Before the election, your office had the mailin ballot is going to take longer. Have been claimed that the election is inaccurate. People, im aware of, where we are in the process, we are in the same place as florida, north carolina. The thing is, in those races, it is not real close. In our case, theres 14,001 under one both right now separating. Therefore, all eyes are focused on that. That is what youre seeing now. The other states are still out there calculating their absentee ballots. Even though someone will have been sworn in, by the time the special election takes place. The Fifth District is not affected by what we are doing here. The Republican Party is saying that ellana republican did dead people vote . Did employees from the Postal Service steel the election . Help thatu going to in counting the votes . [inaudible] number one, i am not the postmaster general. We have no control over the federal Postal Service. When people mail their ballots back under federal government control in the federal post office. The counties have handled that. Through this process, we know that the machines are correct. As it relates to dead people and other forms of illegal voting, if you know of a case of illegal voting, or a suspected illegal voting, three metro s. Bring that to us. A story doesnt work, we need something we can actually investigate. His second round of being attorney general for the United States of america and he has been called a very thorough attorney and he has directed his u. S. Attorneys to look for things. The one thing the federal government does have is resources that we dont have. Sure that thee only people that vote are legal voters. [inaudible] raffensperger those will be ongoing investigations. Does this set a precedent for every close race Going Forward . We understand the National Significance of this session right now. Next time it may some other statewide race. You have to understand, many states, it took them five to seven years to get this going. When colorado did it, that was a multiyear process. We stood up in spite of covid this year. In nine months, 11 months, we are going to do our first statewide election. This is record time that we have done this. Elections gives you the vote of confidence that when you cast your ballot, it was accurately counted. You can leave at the end of the day knowing the system got it right. Are you doing the full recount because the Trump Campaign asked you to . Sen. Raffernsperger no, we are doing it because it is what makes the most sense. With the closeness of this race, we have to run a statewide audit. This is the race that makes the most sense working with our team. This is really what made the most sense. To followup, i understand confidence,ve total but could there be a lot of overtime . Fundpically, the counties their own elections. This is one of the things that they buy into. That is the issue. That is where we are, i dont have answers specifically on that. State,in as secretary of i only have my authorities that i have with an office. That is something that would really be with the General Assembly to help the county. [inaudible] sen. Raffernsperger at the present time. You show yourself as a National Georgian and a National Leader, you still consider yourself a National Leader . Sen. Raffernsperger georgia has done a great job in this past year. New voting system, new Voting Machines in less than six months. We had to do that for the first time. Suddenly, we had to do a 180. What are we going to do here so that we can run elections that are safe for voters . Coming out of that, we stood up and asked about the portal. Voters to tell your name, date, month, and year so we can identify you. Your drivers license number. We make sure it truly is the vote. And then we have the wait time. Successful voting, and then we had a record 2. 8 million voters plus voted in early voting. And we had very short lines for that. State, great success. Elections, the average wait time in the afternoon was about two minutes. At one point, a screech im on facebook, the longest wait time was 40 minutes, drop down 20 minutes. Every vote counts and integrity matters. The recountens if is not done by november 20 . Sen. Raffernsperger well, we would continue that process. But we have a charge that november 20 is our day. Sitting on my dads pickup truck, i grew up with the idea of deadlines. Every day is about hitting deadlines. This date for this, this day for that. Your registration. And then all of a sudden you have a runoff. We have city and municipal elections. Operation is deadlinedriven. Im just trying to understand how you would be working more hours and being more accurate. Sen. Raffernsperger that is why there will be plenty of eyeballs on this to verify that every vote is accurately counted. That is the way the process works because of the large number of votes and the closeness of the vote. It is the only way to do that. E talk to our experts thank you very much for coming out. Well have another announcement later today. Thank you. Thank you. At announcer pennsylvania senator bob casey discusses the 2020 Election Results with the washington post. Live coverage begins this afternoon at 1 00 p. M. On cspan, online at www. Cspan. Org , or you can listen live with the free cspan radio app. Weeklyodcast the looks at the Electoral College. With votes still being counted, we look at the challenges facing the Electoral College and potential reform. Our guests are the manager of election law reform at the Heritage Foundation and a Brooklyn Law School assistant professor of law. Host here is the morning take, the front page of the new york times. Election officials nationwide find no fraud. They write that Election Officials in dozens of states representing both Political Parties said there was no evidence that fraud or other irregularities played a role in the outcome of the president ial race amounting to a forceful review of president trumps portrait of a fraudulent