Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office has released the results of a full hand-count audit of the roughly 5 million votes cast in the presidential contest there, showing Biden has maintained his lead over Trump.

The release states that the audit, "upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome produced by the machine tally of votes cast (and) confirmed that the original machine count accurately portrayed the winner of the election."

Election officials maintained throughout the process, which began last Friday, that they expected the audit would affirm Biden as the winner -- a blow to Trump and his GOP allies as Georgia's 16 electoral votes haven't gone to a Democrat in nearly three decades. 

The audit was not an official recount, which Trump could still request following Georgia's deadline to certify the vote by Friday at 5 p.m. since he remains within a .5% margin of Biden.

Gabriel Sterling, the statewide voting system implementation manager for Raffensperger's office, told Fox News Thursday morning that he hopes Trump will accept the results "because when you question it from either side, it undermines the foundation of democracy."  

The secretary of state's office has reported that four counties -- Floyd, Fayette, Walton and Douglas -- found uncounted votes due to human error in the audit process, but those roughly 5,800 discovered votes have been added to the count. Cobb County, the third largest in the state, discovered it had missed a batch of ballots to hand count during the audit, but those votes were tabulated and reported in the county's original results. 

Though Trump has falsely claimed that Dominion voting machines removed votes for him, Raffensperger said Tuesday the hand-count audit, intended to check the machines, found no signs of foul play. 

Biden's margin of victory in the audit results was 12,284 votes.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan

While the results of Georgia's election audit have not been released, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB that "there's no doubt"that Biden won the state.

"The numbers support that. So does the audit. " Raffensperger said in the interview. 

He also told WSB that he had not seen evidence of any major fraud.

"We've not seen any evidence that they've given us, anything that really supports -- it just doesn't show up, it doesn't work out. The numbers aren't there," Raffensperger said.

-ABC News' Quinn Scanlan

Two more Pennsylvania legal challenges by President Donald Trump's campaign appear to have failed, insuring that more than 2,700 ballots that had been contested over technicalities would, in fact, be counted.

One case, filed in the Philadelphia suburb of Bucks County, sought to toss out 2,177 ballots over missing words on the address line or improperly sealed secrecy envelopes. A similar challenge brought in neighboring Montgomery County was ordered closed by the court.

In dismissing the Bucks County lawsuit, Judge Robert O. Baldi said it would be "an injustice to disenfranchise these voters" based on the technical errors with the ballots. Baldi noted repeatedly that the Trump team "specifically stipulated" that "there exists no evidence of any fraud, misconduct, or any impropriety with respect to the challenged ballots."

"There is nothing in the record and nothing alleged that would lead to the conclusion that any of the challenged ballots were submitted by someone not qualified or entitled to vote in this election," Judge Baldi writes.

The point took on added significance as the Trump legal team, and the president himself, have continued to allege fraud on social media and in press appearances -- but not as stridently in court where evidence is required to support the claim.

Eliza Sweren-Becker, counsel for the Democracy Program at the bipartisan Brennan Center for Justice, told ABC News that suits like these appear aimed at grabbing attention.

"In large part, this litigation, the other cases that the campaign has filed are really a distraction," Sweren-Becker said. "It's important to recognize the frivolous nature of these suits." 

Some of the reasons the Trump team argued would disqualify ballots involved mail-in ballots from voters who left off part of their address or failed to secure properly the secrecy envelope, among other concerns the judge cited as minor.

"The minor irregularity of a lack of a complete handwritten name or address is not necessary to prevent fraud and there would be no other significant interest undermined by allowing these ballots to be counted," he wrote.

-ABC News' Alex Hosenball and Matthew Mosk

Biden took questions following remarks on his efforts to work with governors to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and addressed the Trump administration's stonewalling by not recognizing him as the president-elect. 

Asked by ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce what the American people are witnessing as Trump continues to fight election results with legal battles, Biden paused for a moment before deeming it "totally irresponsible."

“Let me choose my words here,” he said. “I think they're witnessing incredible irresponsibility. Incredibly damaging messages being sent to the rest of the world about how democracy functions. And I think it is -- well, I don't know his motive, but I just think it's totally irresponsible.”

Bruce followed up with whether Biden was concerned the American people might, in turn, question the legitimacy of his administration, but Biden said he wasn't, arguing polling has shown the vast majority of Americans believe in the legitimacy of the election.

However, a recent Monmouth poll found that only 18% of Republican-identifying respondents said they felt Biden won fair and square, while 70% said they felt he won due to voter fraud.

“Most of the Republicans I've spoken to, including some of the governors, think this is debilitating. It sends a horrible message about who we are as a country,” Biden said.

The president-elect said his team has not ruled out legal action against the General Services Administration, but argued that would take a lot of time that he instead hopes to spend building consensus.

Biden weighed in on Trump inviting members of the Michigan state legislature to the White House Friday as the president seeks to overturn results in the state, questioning the legality of the meeting.

“It's going to be another incident where he will go down in history as being one of the most irresponsible presidents in American history," Biden said. "It's just out of the -- not even within the norm at all. There's questions whether it's even legal. But it's going to be interesting to see who shows up in this call to meet with the leadership."

He also revealed that he and his team have decided who will serve as the treasury secretary and said it would be announced just before or after Thanksgiving, adding that it will be someone who will be accepted across the Democratic Party.

-ABC News' Molly Nagle, John Verhovek, Averi Harper and Beatrice Peterson