Stacey Abrams’ first public appearance since the night of the election was in a video posted Sunday on Facebook, where she explained why her campaign continues to fight in hopes of forcing a recount or runoff in the gubernatorial race.
"I'd love to win; I want to win," she said in the video. "But that's not the point. The point is the system has to work. The point is we have to have confidence in that system."
Abrams' campaign staff, in a call with members of the media Sunday evening, said Abrams needs 21,727 additional votes to force a runoff against Republican Brian Kemp and 19,383 more votes to force a recount.
The campaign, after polling Georgia’s counties individually, believes that 26,081 votes statewide have not yet been counted.
Georgia Democrats have already successfully sued to have late-arriving absentee ballots in Dougherty County counted. On Sunday, Abrams' campaign said a second lawsuit is being filed that would force counties to count rejected provisional and absentee ballots under certain circumstances.
Kemp has already declared victory, and his campaign insists that Abrams will not be able to find the votes needed to continue her race.
She invoked the story of Rep. Dan Gasaway, R-Homer, as an example of a candidate who fought to have every vote in his race counted with the court's help.
A judge in September ordered a redo of a May election where Gasaway lost his party’s primary. Afterward, it was discovered that many voters in his district cast ballots in another race because of a mapping error.
The primary will be held again on Dec. 4. Abrams said Republicans never questioned Gasaway’s effort to correct the error.
“In that election, Republicans didn’t clamor for him to step down,” she said. “They didn’t demand that he concede. They supported their colleague who did their own investigation.”
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