Trump campaign distances itself from attorney Sidney Powell: Transition updates

The Michigan Secretary of State said that legally and practically, the results in both Wayne County and Michigan cannot be challenged, in an interview with ABC News Live Prime on Thursday .

"I think first it's clear that the voters of Wayne County and Michigan have spoken and they've made a choice and there's no legal or factual basis for anyone to question that choice or challenge it," Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said. 

"And so we accept the Wayne County certification, just as we accepted every one of our 83 county certification as it was properly made in a public vote, in a public meeting. And now we're moving forward and calling on the board of state canvassers to do the same," she added.

Amid the chaos in the state over Wayne County's certification process, President Trump is expected to meet with Michigan's top state GOP leaders on Friday at the White House, sources told ABC News, just a few days before the state board of canvassers is set to meet to vote to certify the statewide results on Monday. Benson urged that it is "improper" for any candidate regardless of party to seek to meddle in the ongoing certification process.

"It's certainly improper for any candidate on either side of the aisle to attempt to interfere with or obstruct a process that is very well ingrained in the law with an eye towards the processes protecting the will of voters," she said.

The chief elections official also said that the expectation on Monday is for the state board of canvassers, which is also made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, to move forward with certifying the results, calling it an "administrative role." Only three of four votes are needed to certify.

Benson also reiterated that there has been "no evidence of widespread fraud in the election" and dismissed again the concerns by the Republican canvassers in Wayne County as "clerical errors."

It's not the first time the county board was faced with similar issues, Benson said, highlighting that in 2016, there were actually more clerical errors, yet the board still certified the results. 

Looking ahead to future election, Benson said that she is "confident we will get through this. We will move forward and we will do the important work of healing our democracy moving forward."

-ABC News' Kendall Karson

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