Georgia Election Chief Presses Counties To Wrap Up Vote Count

From the Georgia Recorder:

By Jill Nolin

November 4, 2020

(This story was updated at 2 p.m.)

Georgia’s top election official told reporters late Wednesday morning that his office is urging all counties to wrap up results by the end of the day.

The pledge to try to announce results by Wednesday came as the national glare focused on battleground Georgia, where 16 electoral colleges are up for grabs and where the race remains too close to call.

“We’ll be off everyone’s radar and they’ll be worried about the states up north,” said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

If a complete count is not possible Wednesday, Raffensperger said he hoped to at least “get the numbers so small that then there’s no question of who actually the winner is.”

As more votes are counted in Georgia, President Donald Trump’s lead has shrunk. As of about 2 p.m., he led Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden by about 81,000 votes after leading him by nearly 118,000 early Wednesday morning.

Trump, who had about 50.24% of the vote Wednesday afternoon, won Georgia by about 5 percentage points just four years ago.

At the time of Raffensperger’s update from the state Capitol Wednesday, about 200,000 ballots were still left to be counted in Georgia, with about 74,000 in Fulton County. That likely includes absentee ballots put in drop boxes by the 7 p.m. Election Day deadline.

“The law’s very clear, and we follow the state law,” Raffensperger said when asked if his office would defend the legality of absentee ballots submitted to a drop box by the deadline. “We don’t believe that judges should legislate.”

Raffensperger, who is a Republican, said repeatedly that “every legal vote will count.”

Georgia saw a record number of people vote by absentee ballot this year as a safer alternative to voting in person and risking exposure to the coronavirus. The state election board allowed local election officials to start processing absentee ballots early to help reduce the strain on Election Day. In some areas of the country, absentee ballot processing started Wednesday morning.

“We have saved days and days” by doing that, he said. “You’re going to be waiting a long time on some of these states, much too many people’s consternation, because we understand it’s a close election.”

In Georgia, a candidate can request a recount if the results are within a half percentage point.

Aunna Dennis, executive director for Common Cause Georgia, said Wednesday that her group was working to ensure all votes are counted over the next three days.

“We know that folks had to cure their ballots, we know that some folks had to vote on emergency ballots, folks had to vote on provisional ballots, so we have to make sure that those ballots are counted,” Dennis said.

“We are still making sure that democracy prevails and that every Georgia voter has access to an equitable and fair ballot process,” she added

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This story was originally published by the Georgia Recorder. For more stories from the Georgia Recorder, visit GeorgiaRecorder.com.