Joe Biden has been confirmed as the winner of the 3 November election in Georgia following a hand tally of election ballots.

The audit was launched after unofficial results showed Mr Biden leading president Donald Trump by about 14,000 votes.

Following the recount, Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said there was “no doubt” that the state would certify Mr Biden‘s victory on Friday.

“The audit has aligned very close to what we had in election night reporting,” he said.

“It’s so close, it’s not a thimble full of difference.”

Once the state certifies the results, the losing campaign has two business days to request a recount since the margin remains within 0.5%.

The news comes just hours after Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani used a news conference to repeat baseless claims that electoral fraud was involved in the process leading to Mr Biden’s victory.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump and his allies lost three court rulings on Thursday in their effort to stop Mr Biden from taking office, even as they continued to claim a viable path to victory.

In Georgia, a judge appointed by the president denied a request by Lin Wood, a conservative lawyer, to halt certification of Mr Biden’s victory in the state.

The lawsuit alleged Georgia election officials improperly changed the process for handling absentee ballots.

“To halt the certification at literally the eleventh hour would breed confusion and disenfranchisement that I find have no basis in fact and law,” said US District Judge Steven Grimberg.

A judge in Pennsylvania then rejected the Trump campaign’s bid to invalidate about 2,200 ballots in Bucks County, near Philadelphia, over purported defects such as missing “secrecy envelopes”.

The judge noted that the Trump campaign had stipulated that there was “no evidence of any fraud, misconduct, or any impropriety with respect to the challenged ballots”.

In Arizona, a state court judge threw out a Republican-backed lawsuit seeking to halt Phoenix officials from certifying Mr Biden as the winner.

The Arizona Republican Party had asked Judge John Hannah to order a new audit of ballots in Maricopa County, where the majority of Arizonans live, arguing it had been conducted in a manner that violated state law.

The judge did not explain why he was denying the request but said he would issue a lengthier decision soon.

The Arizona Republican Party said in a statement that it had sought “judicial clarification” of a law relating to determining a sample for a post-election audit of ballots.

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