ATLANTA – The race for Georgia’s governor has not been called yet – and Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams’ camp said she’s not ready to give in anytime soon.
At just after 10 a.m., Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp was about 15,500 votes above the threshold for a runoff, according to Abrams’ representatives.
Abrams' camp said there are 14,000 outstanding ballots that still need to be counted -- and they believe those votes will be in Abrams' favor.
On Twitter, Abrams reiterated Wednesday afternoon that, "the race is not over."
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Abrams' camp said there are also 6,000 additional mail-in ballots in Gwinnett and Clarke counties that they think they will win -- and if that happens, they say they will need an additional 10,000 votes to declare victory.
The Democratic party candidate is especially concerned about voting issues reported in DeKalb County where they say ballots are still outstanding.
“We’re not the Secretary of State, so we don’t know the whole story,” Abrams’ representatives said. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of problems in DeKalb.”
Kemp, in addition to being the Republican candidate for governor, is currently Georgia’s Secretary of State.
During the conference call, members of Abrams’ camp alleged DeKalb County isn’t sure what to do with the significant amount of provisional ballots.
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Kemp himself had difficulty voting on one of those machines in Athens after an error popped up on his machine forcing him to recast his ballot.
Abrams officials blamed voting machines that are out-of-date and called voter delays on Election Night “stunning,” as hundreds of people waited in line to cast their ballot in some places.
Another issue at hand is Dougherty County, an area hard-hit by Hurricane Michael when it hit Georgia. The southern Georgia county has rerouted its mail through Tallahassee, Florida which could cause a delay in ballots received, Abrams’ officials said.
11Alive contacted Dougherty County and the elections board. They stated that mail from that county has gone through Tallahassee for the last few years after Dougherty’s post office closed a few years ago and this is not an issue related to the hurricane.
Absentee ballots in that county were due by Friday and some still might still be outstanding, but Dougherty officials would not speculate on how many.
Dougherty’s elections office was closed for a few days in October due to the hurricane, officials said.
Abrams’ camp said it saw “significant” irregularities in last night’s election and activated its legal and voter protection teams. As of Wednesday afternoon, Abrams' campaign has launched what it called an "aggressive provisional ballot chase program" to make sure everyone who voted gets their ballots counted.
The Secretary of State’s Office is overseeing the recount and has until Nov. 20 to verify the election.
