State law in Georgia requires a runoff election if neither candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote total. On election night, Democrat Stacey Abrams was over 45,000 votes short of triggering a runoff. Here is what has happened since then.
UPDATE: With additional votes for @staceyabrams being reported from Cobb, Henry, and Walker counties here in Georgia, we’re getting closer to triggering a runoff election. Every eligible ballot, vote and voice will be counted, valued and heard.#CountEveryVote #gapol #teamabrams pic.twitter.com/aQpRbca0jt
— Abigail Collazo (@LeftStandingUp) November 12, 2018
Those were the numbers as of Monday afternoon. Then this happened:
A federal judge on Monday ordered election officials to review thousands of provisional ballots that haven’t been counted in Georgia’s close election for governor.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg’s order calls for a hotline for voters to check if their provisional ballots were counted, a review of voter registrations, and updated reports from the state government about why many voters were required to use provisional ballots…
Her ruling applies to provisional ballots, which were issued to as many as 27,000 Georgia voters because their registration or identification couldn’t be verified.
Tuesday brought an additional ruling in another case:
Breaking: Without a hearing, Judge May just ruled this AM regarding rejected absentee ballots: All absentees rejected because of a date of birth issue must be counted! This was one of the issues in our litigation that we filed Sunday. #CountEveryVote #gapol #teamabrams
— Lauren Groh-Wargo (@gwlauren) November 13, 2018
That decision “required Gwinnett County officials to accept roughly 400 absentee ballots with errors or omissions in birthdates.” Here’s how Lauren Groh-Wargo, Abrams campaign manager, summed things up:
We found a minimum of 30,823 ballots yet to be counted, mostly concentrated in Democratic areas of Georgia. And that’s not even including the ballots submitted by members of the military or Georgia voters overseas, which could be as high as 2,684 (which is the number of requested ballots). Combined, they represent 33,507 ballots entirely ignored by the Secretary of State office.
After multiple attempts to suppress the vote by her competitor Brian Kemp, the Abrams team is fighting to make sure that every vote is counted.
WATCH: In our latest ad, we discuss the fight to count every vote and how we must make sure every Georgian’s voice is heard. Share your voting story here: https://t.co/eKopViJfgG. pic.twitter.com/OsgZbYZwFT
— Georgia Democrats (@GeorgiaDemocrat) November 13, 2018
By taking on this fight, they’re getting within striking distance of triggering a runoff.
