Page:Wood v. Raffensperger (20-14418) (2020) Decision.pdf/17

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stage of litigation, even if there was a live case or controversy when the lawsuit began. Id. at 1189–90.

Wood asked for several kinds of relief in his emergency motion, but most of his requests pertained to the 2020 election results. He moved the district court to prohibit either the certification of the election results or certification that included the disputed absentee ballots. He also asked the district court to order a new hand recount and to grant Republican election monitors greater access during both the recount and the January runoff election. But after the district court denied Wood’s motion, Secretary Raffensperger certified the election results on November 20. And Governor Kemp certified the slate of presidential electors later that day.

Because Georgia has already certified its results, Wood’s requests to delay certification and commence a new recount are moot. “We cannot turn back the clock and create a world in which” the 2020 election results are not certified. Fleming v. Gutierrez, 785 F.3d 442, 445 (10th Cir. 2015). And it is not possible for us to delay certification nor meaningful to order a new recount when the results are already final and certified. Cf. Tropicana Prods. Sales, Inc. v. Phillips Brokerage Co., 874 F.2d 1581, 1582 (11th Cir. 1989) (“[A]n appeal from the denial of a motion for preliminary injunction is mooted when the requested effective end-date for the preliminary injunction has passed.”). Nor can we reconstrue Wood’s previous request that we temporarily prohibit certification into a new request that

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