Certifying this year's presidential results begins quietly, in contrast to the 2020 election

ATLANTA (AP) — Local officials are beginning to certify the results of this year’s presidential election in a process that, so far, has been playing out quietly, in stark contrast to the tumultuous certification period four years ago that followed then-President Donald Trump’s loss.

Georgia was the first of the presidential battleground states to start certifying, with local election boards voting throughout the day Tuesday. As counties certified their results without controversy, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger hailed Georgia’s election as “free, fair and fast.”

Trump won Georgia and the six other presidential battleground states, after losing six of them to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. County certification meetings are scheduled later in the week in several other swing states — Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

The lack of certification drama so far this week is a return to how the typically routine process worked before Trump lost his bid for reelection four years ago. As he sought then to overturn the will of the voters, he and his allies pressured Republican members of certification boards in Michigan to delay or halt the process. They also sought to delay certifications in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

The boards ultimately voted to certify, but Trump’s focus on certification caught on among Republicans. Some local Republican officials have refused to certify results in elections since then, raising concerns of a wider movement to reject certification this year had Trump lost to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Some of that sentiment was present on Tuesday. Michael Heekin, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections said he disagreed that certifying election results “is purely a ministerial duty.”

“We should be the first line of defense, at least one of the lines of defense in examining the goodness and the accuracy of the election,” he said.

A lawyer for the county, which includes heavily Democratic Atlanta, explained during the meeting that certification was a necessary step before any election challenge could proceed. The county election board certified the results late Tuesday.

Unlike Trump four years ago, Harris acknowledged her loss and conceded. Trump also won the popular vote for the first time during his three runs for the White House and praised the election results. Rather than descending on county ballot counting centers in anger, his supporters have been jubilant.

“This time four years ago, I was getting nasty phone calls constantly in my office,” said Lisa Tollefson, the elections clerk in Rock County, Wisconsin. This year, she said, “it’s been very quiet.”

That’s not to say everyone is happy. Conspiracy theories surrounding this year’s election are circulating within both parties.

Following Election Day, left-wing conspiracy theories proliferated on TikTok, X and other social platforms as users questioned why Harris’ total vote count was around 60 million — about 20 million fewer votes than Biden received four years ago.

Some right-wing accounts twisted the narrative, falsely claiming the vote gap was instead proof that Biden’s 2020 tally must have included fake votes.

The claims didn’t consider the fact that tabulation would take several days, including in Arizona and California, the nation’s most populous state. As votes continue to be counted this week, Harris has made up ground and now has nearly 72 million votes, a number that will continue to grow.

Counties and other local jurisdictions across the country will be conducting post-election audits of the vote over the next few weeks. Those typically involve hand-counting a certain number of ballots and comparing the results to machine tallies to ensure accuracy.

Before local results are certified, the top election official typically provides the vote totals by candidate in each race along with how many voters cast ballots and how many total ballots were cast. Any discrepancies get reported and explained.

“The whole point of this period is to find those types of errors,” said Kim Wyman, the former top election official in Washington state. “They are making sure the results were accurate, that the election was accurate.”

Every state will be going through the process, including presidential battlegrounds.

Election certification meetings start Wednesday in Nevada, which backed a Republican in the presidential race for the first time in 20 years. The state's 17 counties have until Friday to certify, while Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, and the Nevada Supreme Court must meet by Nov. 26 to finalize the statewide results.

Arizona's 15 counties must certify by Nov. 21 and forward the results to the governor and secretary of state — both of whom are Democrats — for statewide certification four days later.

In North Carolina, where election officials recovered quickly after Hurricane Helene devastated the western part of the state, election boards in all 100 counties were scheduled to meet Friday to certify results.

Pennsylvania counties have until Nov. 25 to certify. Some larger counties were still reviewing and counting provisional ballots on Tuesday, the deadline for them to report unofficial results to the state. Litigation was possible with a U.S. Senate race hovering near the threshold for an automatic statewide recount.

Michigan’s 83 county canvassing boards have until Nov. 19 to review local results before forwarding them to the Board of State Canvassers. The four-member board, comprised of two Democrats and two Republicans, is scheduled to certify the results by Nov. 25.

In Wisconsin, counties began the canvass process on Tuesday and have until Nov. 19 to certify. The Wisconsin Elections Commission will review the county reports and the chair — currently a Democrat — will certify the results by Dec. 1.

The biggest potential problem in the state was identified on Election Day and corrected. Vote-tabulating machines used for mail ballots in Milwaukee were not properly sealed. A bipartisan decision was made to start over the process of counting the ballots once the problem was addressed.

The state’s nonpartisan top election administrator, Meagan Wolfe, said the election had been a success with no major problems. She attributed that to years of training and preparations by local election workers.

“Well-run elections do not happen by accident,” she said.

Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix; Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan; Christine Fernando in Chicago; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

An election worker looks over an absentee voter ballot, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, at Huntington Place in Detroit. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

An observer watches as election workers sort mail-in ballots at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

An election worker processes mail-in ballots for the 2024 General Election at the Philadelphia Election Warehouse, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

An Election worker sorts mail-in ballots at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Election workers process ballots at the Washoe County Registrar of Voters Office, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in Reno, Nev. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders on Wednesday blamed “Moroccans” for attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last week, asserting that they “want to destroy Jews” and recommending the deportation of people convicted of involvement if they have dual nationality.

While lawmakers condemned antisemitism and agreed that perpetrators of the violence should be prosecuted and handed harsh punishments, opposition legislators accused Wilders of “pouring oil on the fire” and said his statements during a parliamentary debate were not conducive to “a better society.”

Violence erupted in the Dutch capital before and after last week's soccer match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Fans from both sides were involved in unrest; a number of Maccabi fans attacked a cab and chanted anti-Arab slogans while some men carried out “hit and run” attacks on people they thought were Jews, according to Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema.

After the match, parts of a large group of Maccabi supporters armed with sticks ran around “destroying things,” a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam authorities said. There were also “rioters, moving in small groups, by foot, scooter or car, quickly attacking Maccabi fans before disappearing,” it said.

Amsterdam police said five people were treated in hospital for injuries. Police detained dozens of people before the match, but there were no immediate arrests for violence after it.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Amsterdam's central Dam Square to hold a demonstration despite a new city ban on such gatherings. Large numbers of police were present and ordered the protesters to move to a park in western Amsterdam where they had been granted permission to demonstrate.

Reports of antisemitic speech, vandalism and violence have been on the rise in Europe since the start of the war in Gaza, and tensions were high in Amsterdam ahead of the soccer match. The assaults on Maccabi fans sparked outrage and were widely condemned as antisemitic.

The violence badly tarnished Amsterdam's long-held image as a haven of tolerance and sparked soul-searching across the country.

Wilders, whose anti-immigration Party for Freedom won elections last year and now is part of a four-party ruling coalition government, said Wednesday that on the night Amsterdam commemorated Kristallnacht, the 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany, “we saw Muslims hunting Jews on the streets of Amsterdam,” and blamed ”Moroccans who want to destroy Jews."

He gave no evidence. Police and prosecutors have not disclosed the identities of any of the suspects that were detained, in line with Dutch privacy rules.

Wilders advocated canceling the Dutch passports of people convicted of involvement in the violence — if they have a double passport — and deporting them.

Wilders, who is sometimes described as the Dutch Donald Trump because of his fierce anti-immigration rhetoric, has lived under round-the-clock protection for 20 years because of death threats from Islamic extremists. He has also long been a staunch supporter of Israel.

Some lawmakers warned that his new comments only served to deepen divisions in Dutch society.

Rob Jetten of the centrist D66 party said Wilders' rhetoric "does not contribute in any way to healing. In no way does he contribute to bringing our country together, but he throws oil on the fire and thus does not bring solutions against antisemitism and for a better society any closer, but only further away.”

Frans Timmermans, who leads the biggest center-left bloc in parliament, agreed.

“What you are doing is just stirring things up, dividing this country when this country needs politicians who bring people together, who bring solutions closer," Timmermans said.

In Amsterdam, a prominent Jewish member of the City Council, Itay Garmy, said that although there’s a lot of anger and fear within the Jewish community, inflammatory remarks wouldn’t help.

“Don’t use my security or my suffering or my fear as a Jew to create political gains for yourself and make your points about integration, migration or Muslim hate,” Garmy said.

Associated Press writer Bram Janssen in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

In this image taken from video, police in riot gear run towards protesters, after pro-Palestinian supporters marched near the soccer stadium, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (RTL Nieuws via AP)

Dutch lawmaker Wilders wants to deport those convicted of violence against Israeli soccer fans

In this image taken from video, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters walk toward police line, with police vans driving in the background, near the soccer stadium in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (RTL Nieuws via AP)

Dutch lawmaker Wilders wants to deport those convicted of violence against Israeli soccer fans