It appears someone in the Georgia secretary of state’s office got a bit over their skis, after Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced today that Georgia had certified former Vice President Joe Biden as the state’s presidential winner, which our own Streiff reported earlier on Friday.

Now, the office is backtracking on that. In a live update, under a banner reading, “Georgia secretary of state issues correction, saying certification of its general election results is still under way,” the Washington Post reports:

Despite an earlier announcement, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said the office is still completing its certification. The office issued a correction, reversing an earlier announcement that had declared the certification was complete. Raffensperger said he expects certification to be completed later Friday.

A revised update from WaPo included this depiction of the “error”:

His office then stumbled on the final step, prematurely announcing that the certification was complete while only unofficial results remained on the public website. Forty minutes after the big news, the secretary of state’s office corrected its news release and said the results would be released later.
[…]

State law requires Raffensperger to certify the election results by 5 p.m. Friday. Then, Gov. Brian Kemp has until 5 p.m. Saturday to certify the state’s slate of 16 presidential electors.

#BREAKING I have learned that the Secretary of State and Gov. Kemp WILL CERTIFY the Georgia election and the 5pm news conference will simple announce that. The Sec of State certification news release was sent out before the certification was official. It will happen, I am told.

— Brendan Keefe (@BrendanKeefe) November 20, 2020

There was also this more reality-based take from the Washington Examiner:

The snafu was just the latest embarrassing turn in what has been a chaotic electoral process in the traditional Republican state.

Earlier at the state Capitol, Raffensperger had declared: “Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don’t lie.”

“As secretary of state, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct. The numbers reflect the verdict of the people, not a decision by the secretary of state’s office or of courts or of either campaign,” he said.

As this is breaking news, RedState will share additional updates as they become available.