Trump campaign picks Rep. Doug Collins to lead Georgia recount team
ATLANTA (AP) — A Republican congressman will lead a Georgia recount team for President Donald Trump’s campaign, as the president continues to make unsubstantiated accusations of large scale voter fraud.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, who gave up his seat and then came up short in his attempt to reach a Jan. 5 Senate runoff, was tapped Sunday to lead the recount team in Georgia, a campaign news release said.
Collins said in the statement that the Trump campaign is “confident” the recounting group will “find evidence of improperly harvested ballots and other irregularities.”
“We are concerned about the lack of transparency in the tabulation process,” said Matt Morgan, Trump 2020 general counsel. “In order for Americans to have full faith and confidence in our elections, every legal vote must be counted and every illegal or fraudulent vote must be excluded.”
No evidence has been produced to substantiate the campaign’s claims.
The Associated Press declared Joe Biden president-elect on Saturday after he surpassed the 270 electoral vote threshold with victories in Pennsylvania and Nevada. The AP has not yet called the race in Georgia, where Biden currently leads Trump by about 10,000 votes.
Recounts rarely change outcomes in races where a candidate leads by thousands of votes.
Friday was the deadline for voters to fix problems with flawed absentee or provisional ballots, as well as the deadline for ballots to arrive from overseas. By Saturday, 37 of Georgia’s 159 counties had submitted certified, final results.
Fulton County on Saturday began rescanning some votes first counted Friday. County officials said they noticed some ballots had not been counted or scanned properly. County spokesperson Jessica Corbitt said workers are rescanning the batch of ballots in question and they would repost the results later.