Georgia's Secretary of State certifies election results with Trump gaining about 2,000 votes in the recount but Biden still the winner.

"Georgia has certified Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election in the state, following a by-hand recount that confirmed Biden’s victory. While over 2,000 votes for President Trump were discovered during the recount, Biden won by a margin of 12,284 votes." (National Review)

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• Georgia's Secretary of State certified the presidential election results and declared Joe Biden the winner. The state awards 16 Electoral College votes.

• Georgia just completed its hand recount of the presidential election this week because the margin between the two candidates was so close.

As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported, with the emphasis our own: "In all, the manual recount revealed nearly 6,000 additional votes in the presidential election. About 3,600 of them were for Trump and 2,200 were for Biden out of 5 million total votes cast."

• The issues were reportedly county-specific clerical errors (that is, human errors) -- rather than widespread issues and/or technical failures -- including "memory cards that hadn’t been loaded into election computers" and failing to "rescan [ballots] after replacing an optical scanner that had a problem."

• President Trump's campaign has until Tuesday to request another recount.

Georgia county's Board of Elections fires chief elections clerk fired after more than 2,500 previously un-tallied ballots found during hand recount.

"Floyd County's Board of Elections voted Thursday to fire its executive director after elections officials discovered hundreds of ballots were left uncounted before the county's initial certification. The Secretary of State's Office initially asked for Floyd Chief of Elections Clerk [name removed] to step down after officials discovered the uncounted votes." (Fox 5 Atlanta)

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• In Georgia, Floyd County's Board of Election voted to fire the Chief of Elections Clerk yesterday. The Georgia Secretary of State had previously called on him to step down.

• More than 2,600 previously un-tallied ballots were discovered in Floyd County during the recount. The Georgia Secretary of State's office said the issue was "Floyd County election officials failing to upload votes from a memory card in a ballot-scanning machine." The votes have since been tallied and the final vote counts adjusted.

• Earlier this week, the Floyd County GOP Chairman weighed in on the missing ballot issue: "It’s very concerning. But this doesn’t appear to be a widespread issue. I’m glad the audit revealed it, and it’s important that all votes are counted.”

House Democrats want to use their majority to ... bring back earmarks. Senate GOP has a "permanent ban" on earmarks.

"House Democratic leaders are proceeding with plans to bring back earmarks for the 117th Congress, according to Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer. Hoyer, D-Md., said in an interview that sometime after the Appropriations Committee’s new chairwoman is elected the week of Nov. 30, she will begin soliciting House lawmakers to “ask for congressional initiatives for their districts and their states." (Roll Call)

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• Proving the old adage "elections have consequences," House Democrats want to use their majority to bring back earmarks.

• "Earmarks" is the term used for the parts of congressional legislation that direct spending to specific projects or places -- usually (and most frustratingly for government budget and waste watchdogs!) to Members of Congress' districts and/or states.

• House Republicans banned earmarks in their 2011 rules, and the Senate Republicans have a "permanent ban" on earmarks, too.

• But House Democrats want to rebrand earmarks as "congressionally directed spending" and, reportedly, return to the practice.