A 4 a.m. dispatch: Why Abrams refused to concede

Stacey Abrams and her campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo early Wednesday. (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM)

Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC

Credit: Alyssa Pointer/AJC

Stacey Abrams and her campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo early Wednesday. (ALYSSA POINTER/ALYSSA.POINTER@AJC.COM)

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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