ATLANTA — A federal judge ordered Georgia’s Secretary of State review and provide detailed reports about thousands of provisional ballots from last week’s midterm election.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg also ordered the state to set up a hotline or website “for provisional ballot voters to access to determine whether their provisional ballots were counted and if not, the reason why.”
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last week by Common Cause Georgia and attorneys at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.
It’s one of the latest developments in Georgia’s race for Governor between Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams.
Provisional ballots take center stage
Judge Totenberg’s order requires the Secretary of State to push back the certification of election results until Friday at 5 p.m. to allow more time to review provisional ballots that haven't been counted.
“The right to vote is fundamental, and no one should lose that right because of mistakes in the voter registration database. The Georgians who voted in this election deserve better than what the state wanted to give them,” said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s democracy program.
Abrams picks up votes
Abrams picked up a net gain of 1,102 votes in the counting of absentee and provisional ballots by local election officials on Monday.
She needs more than 20,000 additional votes to force a runoff.
Kemp renews calls to concede
Kemp’s campaign accused Abrams and her team of trying to steal the election with lawsuits and “misinformation.”
"Stacey Abrams and her radical backers have moved from desperation to delusion," said Ryan Mahoney, Communications Director. "On Saturday, military, overseas, and provisional ballots were reported throughout Georgia. The counts are in line with publicly available tracking reports. This is not breaking news and does not change the math.”
