US President-elect Joe Biden speaks to reporters following an online meeting with members of the National Governors Association (NGA) executive committee in Wilmington, Delaware, US, November 19, 2020. [Reuters]
The US state of Georgia has completed a manual recount of all the ballots cast there in the presidential election, and the results confirm Joe Biden's win in the state, a local official announced Thursday.
"The audit confirmed that the original machine count accurately portrayed the winner of the election," a statement posted on the website of Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said.
The confirmation makes Biden the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the southern US state in almost three decades, despite his rival Donald Trump's claims of fraud.
The recount showed Biden had won by 12,284 votes -- slightly fewer than the approximately 14,000 he originally led by.
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Trump has refused to accept his loss on November 3, despite his opponent getting over six million more votes.
Biden won the state-by-state Electoral College votes that ultimately decide who takes the White House by 306 to 232, flipping five states that went to Trump four years ago.
