Brian Kemp said he was “confident” his razor-thin advantage in the Georgia governor race will hold up, but Stacey Abrams said the outstanding ballots lean her way.

In a 4 a.m. dispatch, the Democrat’s campaign explained why Abrams could net the roughly 25,000 ballots needed to trigger a Dec. 4 runoff against Kemp. The runoff would be necessary if neither candidate gets a majority-vote needed to win outright.

Her campaign argued that only a portion of the mail-in ballots in three metro Atlanta counties – Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett – had yet to be counted. And four other large Democratic-leaning counties – Athens-Clarke, Chatham, Douglas and Henry – hadn’t tallied any mail-in ballots by 4 a.m.

In all, those seven counties are expected to return at least 77,000 mail-in ballots, the Abrams campaign said.

Another 20,000 or so absentee ballots are set to be counted in Gwinnett County, as are a range of provisional and paper ballots, some cast because of technical issues at polling precincts.

“Votes remain to be counted. Voices waiting to be heard,” said Abrams, adding: “We are going to make sure that every vote is counted – because in a civilized nation, the machinery of democracy should work everywhere for everyone.”

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A rendering of the columbarium memorial that is estimated to be completed by next summer or fall in the southeast part of Oakland Cemetery, officials said. (Courtesy of Historic Oakland Foundation)

Credit: Historic Oakland Foundation