Democratic candidate for Georgia governor, Stacey Abrams, is vowing to remain in the race until “every single eligible ballot cast is counted.”
Abrams, the Democratic candidate, has yet to concede in the race to become Georgia's next governor.
The Republican candidate, Brian Kemp, has claimed victory and has been congratulated by Gov. Nathan Deal and President Donald Trump among others.
According to the Secretary of State's Office website, Kemp collected 1,973,098 votes, Abrams got 1,910,388 votes and Libertarian Ted Metz received 37,088 votes. That would give Kemp 50.32% of the votes.
A candidate in Georgia must receive more than 50% of the vote to be declared a winner.
Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, the chair of Abrams’ campaign, said during a press conference on Friday that Abrams’ camp has filed a legal motion in Dougherty County over apparent absentee ballot issues and said more litigation is expected Friday.
Lawrence-Hardy made sure to emphasize that Abrams’ campaign believes that poll officials and voters are not to blame – that it is Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate for governor, who “abused his power” acting as Secretary of State over his own gubernatorial election.
“Kemp, and Kemp alone, is responsible for Georgia’s shocking inability to run elections efficiently,” Lawrence-Hardy said. “These suppressive tactics are reminiscent of ‘old south’ tactics resurrected by Brian Kemp in a state that let him oversee his own election, and decide who is the winner.”
Several registered voters who experienced issues at the polls described their issues voting on Election Day.
One woman, a student from Boston who is registered to vote in DeKalb County, said she never received an absentee ballot despite repeatedly asking for one. Another voter in East Point said he was denied a ballot because he changed his address at least twice prior to Election Day.
He said he only knew what to do after calling the Democratic Party’s Election Hotline – which Abrams’ camp claimed has fielded thousands of calls from voters with questions about how to vote.
“I knew I was lucky, I had the privilege to drive a car to a polling center 30 minutes away and take hours off of work to vote,” he said.
Lawrence-Hardy said that students at Morehouse, Spelman and Clark Atlanta Universities were particularly affected by long wait times at the polls – and some had to go to several different locations to try and vote.
Some of the biggest issues voters faced on Election Day were out-of-date polling machines.
“The lion’s share of problems are with provisional ballots, due to the failure of inadequate machinery – not lack of proper identification,” Lawrence-Hardy said. “The counties have to count those votes, and all paper ballots must be counted with no further action needed by the voter.”
When 11Alive asked the Secretary of State's office for a statement Friday, a spokeswoman directed us to the county election boards, saying they are the ones who seal, store, and decide how many units of voting equipment to deploy in each area.
But the Abrams camp points out, the Secretary of State is ultimately the supervisor of elections which at the time was Brian Kemp.
While Abrams’ campaign would not speculate on whether voting issues at the polls were racially motivated – Lawrence-Hardy pointed to demographics.
“The fact is, these are largely Democratic precincts with inadequate machines and paper ballots, impacting mostly people of color and students,” Lawrence-Hardy said. “Kemp has purged an unprecedented amount of voters with his insistence on exact-match legislation, by not replacing aging machines and not giving proper guidance to counties.”
Lawrence-Hardy declared that Kemp has “trampled on the Constitutional rights” of voters – and not just Democrats.
“Our mission is simple – count all the votes,” Lawrence-Hardy said. “We are fighting with litigation we think we can win to get every vote counted. People need to have confidence moving forward that every vote matters.
Kemp served as secretary of state until stepping down on Wednesday. His campaign said they believe Abrams has no clear path to victory, and that Kemp should be considered governor-elect.
