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Georgia Election Official Says Stacey Abrams Has No Path to Victory

Georgia Election Official Says Stacey Abrams Has No Path to Victory

(Bloomberg) -- A Georgia election official told a federal judge that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has no chance of beating her Republican challenger, former Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.

“Even if every provisional ballot was counted for the candidate in second place, which is highly unlikely, it would not change whom the winner is and would not force a runoff for this office," the state elections director, Chris Harvey, said in a sworn affidavit on Thursday.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • There were 21,190 provisional ballots cast in the midterm election, Harvey said in the filing in federal court in Atlanta. Kemp was leading Abrams by 62,710 votes, he said. Kemp resigned as secretary of state Thursday after declaring victory in the race.
  • The filing was made in a lawsuit by a the non-partisan civil rights group Common Cause, which seeks to force the state to count every provisional ballot, even if the voter’s name doesn’t appear on the state’s voter roll.
  • The group alleged that mismanagement by Kemp, who oversaw the election, exposed Georgia’s voter registration database to tampering and possible purging of voters’ names, thus causing more provisional ballots to be issued at the polls. Those ballots, the suit claims, may now go uncounted under current state law.
  • Another sworn affidavit by the state said Common Cause’s claims are without merit because the alleged flaw is with a web-based voter database that’s separate from the state’s official voter database.
  • U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg held a hearing today in Atlanta to consider a court order that all provisional ballots be counted.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth

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