As the vote counting continued Wednesday, people across the nation watched to see whether Georgia would finally become the swing state that Democrats have long hoped for.
Georgia’s top election official said Wednesday morning that the state has roughly 200,000 ballots left to count, and he is pushing counties to complete the task by the end of the day.
“My team has sent reminders to counties to get all, let me repeat, all of our results counted today. Every legal vote will count,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a news conference in Atlanta.
Raffensperger later acknowledged that counties may not be able to complete the process by the end of the day, even though his office is “pushing really hard” for that.
“If we don’t get it there but we get the numbers so small that then there’s no question of who actually the winner is, I think that will be helpful,” he said.
By 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Associated Press considered President Donald Trump’s 39,000 vote margin over Vice President Joe Biden out of more than 4.7 million votes cast too close to award the state’s 16 electoral votes to either candidate.
In the morning Raffensberger estimated that there were around 52,000 uncounted votes in DeKalb, 74,000 absentee votes and 43,000 early votes in Fulton County, 7,000 votes in Forsyth, among other ballots yet to be counted in other counties.
“We’re just knocking those down one at a time,” he said.
In sharp contrast to the hours-long lines during previous elections and in when early voting began three weeks ago, Raffensberger applauded the largely smooth election day, citing only a few hiccups. People lined up outside polling places before they opened at 7 a.m. but the average wait time was short throughout the day.
Raffensperger credited the large numbers of people who voted ahead of Election Day. A record of nearly 2.7 million voters cast their ballots during the state’s three-week early in-person voting period. Another 1.5 million absentee ballots had been received and accepted.
The primary was the first statewide election carried out on the new election system the state bought for more than $100 million last year from Dominion Voting Systems. The system includes touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots for voters to insert into scanners, which read a barcode to record and tally the votes.
There were some problems. An apparent database error affected all polling sites in Spalding County about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Atlanta, where voters encountered delays after electronic ballots wouldn’t load on touchscreen voting machines. Poll workers switched to a manual process and voting continued. Eight of the 18 locations were operating normally by the afternoon, according to Gabe Sterling with the Secretary of State’s Office.
Four of seven locations that experienced technical problems in Morgan County east of Atlanta also were running normally later Tuesday, as was Morris Brandon Elementary School in Atlanta, where voters initially were forced to cast paper ballots instead of voting on machines.
Vote counting continues
Results were in for more than 97% of precincts in Fulton as of midday Wednesday, with Vice President Joe Biden is up over President Donald Trump by nearly 200,000 votes. Late afternoon, the president’s lead has dropped to 39,000. Fulton County elections officials told News4Jax that they are down to 30,000 ballots left to count.
Counting of absentee ballots resumed at State Farm Arena -- where the Atlanta Hawks play -- at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday with the hope that it will be finished by the afternoon.
Gwinnett and DeKalb, which both also leans Democratic, is also still processing ballots the day after the voting ended.
Some 80,000 absentee ballots in Gwinnett County need further review after a software malfunction with the machines scanning the county’s unique two-page ballots.
“Gwinnett County is the only county in Georgia that sent a two-page absentee by mail ballot, printed front and back, because the ballot is in both English and Spanish,” a Gwinnett County official told WAGA-TV in Atlanta.
In DeKalb County, while results are nearing completion at 99% reported, some absentee ballots still need to be tabulated. That county resumed counting at 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Officials estimate Cobb County’s 15,000 ballots left to count will be done by late Wednesday or early Thursday.
After the votes are processed, the Secretary of State’s Office will do a statewide audit of the results in order to give “people additional assurance” that the results are accurate. By Friday, Nov. 13, the state will certify the results of the election.
Trump and Biden are locked in a tight contest to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Early Wednesday, Trump prematurely claimed he carried Georgia and several other states that were too early to call.
“It’s ... clear that we have won Georgia. We’re up by 2.5%, or 117,000 (votes) with only 7% (of the vote) left” to count, Trump said during an early morning appearance at the White House. He also said he planned to contest the U.S. presidential election before the Supreme Court. It was unclear exactly what legal action he might pursue.
As of noon Wednesday, the Associated Press estimates 4% of the vote is still left to count and data show Trump currently up by fewer than 39,000 votes.