ATLANTA — Below is an archive for election happenings across the state on Nov. 10.
For updates on Nov. 11 click here.
Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election by major news outlets over the weekend, and 'increasingly looks like he will soon be certified the winner in Georgia.
Things will remain too close to call here, though, until an official result is certified by the state, which it is required to do by Nov 20. Counties have until this Friday to certify their official results to the state ahead of that deadline.
With a margin separating President-elect Biden and President Trump of less than half a percent, and a recount all but inevitable, an official result in Georgia may be out of grasp for some time. The state has also said it will conduct its own audit ahead of a recount.
As the official process plows ahead, things are beginning to get politically acrimonious in Georgia - with the state's two Republican senators lobbing accusations of unspecified and unsubstantiated "failures" at Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a call for his resignation, and him labeling their claims "laughable."
We'll keep you updated throughout the day on developments in the never-boring Peach State.
TUESDAY UPDATES:
10:30 p.m. | A Georgia Rep. claimed 11Alive reported a vote scanning issue would result in more votes for the president. This is false but Trump tweeted it.
7:45 p.m. | Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has announced plans for a 10:30 a.m. news conference from the Georgia state Capitol to give an update on the state of things.
7:25 p.m. | Biden’s lead has grown to 14,149 votes. The new updates came in from Fulton, Fayette, Lincoln, Early and Bibb counties.
On the certification front, 92 out of 159 (57%) of Georgia's counties have certified their votes.
5:10 p.m. | Add another county: Up to 92 certifications. Plus 28 more votes to make the total 4,989,046.
4:30 p.m. | Ari Schaffer in the Secretary of State's Office has provided a statement on the Collins/Shafer letter (which you can read about a couple entries below):
“Our office is reviewing these documents and all affidavits once we receive them."
4:20 p.m. | We're now up to 91 counties out of 159 that have certified their results. That's up from 76 at the start of the day.
The vote tally itself is up to 4,989,018, with Joe Biden's lead at 12,651.
4:05 p.m. | We mentioned this earlier, but Vice President Mike Pence confirms he'll be in Georgia next week:
3:56 p.m. | For an outline of the limited extent to which specific allegations of election irregularities have been made since Election Day, see Doug Richards' report from last night: Allegations of voter fraud in Georgia scant
3:55 p.m. | A note about that letter: It mentions receiving hundreds of reports of voting discrepancies, but makes reference to only two for which they claim to have submitted affidavits to a court with evidence.
One of those has been outlined on Twitter by Shafer, in which he contends Republican election observers were told to go home from the Fulton County counting site at State Farm Arena at 10:30 p.m. on Election Night, only for the counting to continue until 1:00 a.m.
The other alludes to the duplication of spoiled ballots "without the statutorily required presence of witnesses," but does not say when or where this happened. ("Duplication" is when a ballot is damaged for some reason and discarded - "spoiled" - and then an election worker submits the ballot manually on a voting machine.)
11Alive has requested copies of those affidavits from the Georgia GOP.
3:45 p.m. | In a letter to Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, Rep. Doug Collins and Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer are now asking for a full statewide hand recount before election results are certified.
By law, the results have to be certified by Nov. 20, and Georgia Board of Election rules appear to make clear that recounts are to be conducted by machine in the absence of a court order (or if "after testing all available ballot scanners, there are no ballot scanners authorized to be used in the recount.")
3:25 p.m. | There was a matter today in which a Fox News report linked Rev. Raphael Warnock to a visit by Fidel Castro to the New York City church where he was an assistant pastor in the mid-90s.
The report has been promoted by Warnock's rival, Sen. Kelly Loeffler, as evidence of "radical" leanings. The Democratic Senate candidate has now provided this response through a campaign spokesperson:
"This is another desperate, dishonest attack from the Loeffler campaign. Of course Reverend Warnock doesn’t agree with the dictator’s beliefs and actions, and had no role in deciding who spoke before the church 25 years ago when he was a youth pastor. The Loeffler campaign clearly wants to talk about anything but her support of a Supreme Court lawsuit that could overturn the Affordable Care Act.”
3:00 p.m. | Update on the key numbers: We're now up to 84 of 159 counties that have certified their results. The total vote count has ticked up to 4,988,857 and Joe Biden's lead stands at 12,566.
2:15 p.m. | A number of national reporters have said this afternoon that Mike Pence told Senate Republicans he will be in Georgia next week to campaign on behalf of Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Sen. David Perdue. We're working to independently confirm details on that potential visit.
1:50 p.m. | 11Alive's Joe Ripley was on hand for a press conference earlier today in which Senate candidate Jon Ossoff defended the Affordable Care Act - you can read his write-up on that event here.
Incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue also just sent along this statement in response:
Senator Perdue always has and always will support protecting healthcare for those with pre-existing conditions, period. Jon Ossoff is pushing a socialized healthcare plan that would increase medical costs, leave us with fewer doctors, and close hospitals during an unprecedented global pandemic. It is the height of hypocrisy for Ossoff to criticize Senator Perdue, who has secured billions of dollars in COVID-19 healthcare assistance for Georgians while he spent months opposing the Senator's efforts to do so
1:20 p.m. | In addition to a recount, there appear to be a number of calls online for the state to conduct an audit. Just to clear that up: The Secretary of State's Office has already said it's going to conduct one before it certifies the results.
12:50 p.m. | Little update: State Board of Election rules sent to us by a reader do provide for a hand recount "pursuant to a court order" and as outlined thusly in Rule 183-1-15-.03(1)(c):
Prior to conducting a recount, the election superintendent shall test each ballot scanner to be used in the recount. A test deck shall be prepared to include at least 75 ballots marked by an electronic ballot marker and 25 absentee ballots marked by hand that were cast in the election to be recounted. The ballots shall be selected from at least 3 different precincts, if available. The selection of individual ballots from a precinct's ballot container shall be conducted in a manner that selects ballots from throughout the ballot container. The test desk shall be tabulated by the ballot scanner or scanners to be used in the recount using one or more batches. A manual hand count of the test deck shall be made and compared to the electronic tabulation of the test deck. If the two counts do not match, the discrepancy shall be researched and additional tests may be run. If the discrepancy cannot be resolved so that the manual hand count and electronic tabulation of the test deck matches, the ballot scanner shall not be used in the recount. If, after testing all available ballot scanners, there are no ballot scanners authorized to be used in the recount, the recount shall be conducted by manual hand count. Upon completion of the test, the test deck ballots shall be returned to their original ballot containers.
Key there seems to be that, at the county level, administrators are instructed to recount by machine unless all available ballot scanners fail to pass the test laid out above.
12:13 p.m. | One thing we'll note in those laws - they don't seem to specifically preclude a hand recount, but there are also no provisions for any, whereas there are specific provisions for how machines are to be addressed. Can't be sure, obviously, how a court would interpret things there.
12:10 p.m. | If you're interested, amid the talk about hand recounts by President Trump's team today, here are the exact laws laying out Georgia's recount protocols in O.C.G.A. 21-2-495.
11:30 a.m. | More tiny updates:
11:00 a.m. | We're more than halfway to an official result now: 81 of the 159 counties have certified their results as of the latest update.
10:40 a.m. | That last little set of votes was from Madison County, up northeast of Athens, by the way:
10:30 a.m. | A few hundred more votes registered, bringing the statewide total to 4,988,415. Biden's lead is 12,290 votes, with the number of counties that have certified their results still at 78.
10:10 a.m. | Jon Ossoff, Rev. Raphael Warnock, and Reps.-elect Nikema Williams and Carolyn Bourdeaux are delivering remarks on healthcare. You can watch them live in the video player at the top of this story.
9:45 a.m. | An example of some of the kinds of small counts that will filter in today:
9:15 a.m. | For more on the limited extent of actual allegations of fraud in Georgia, you can see Doug Richards' report from last night: Allegations of voter fraud in Georgia scant
9:00 a.m. | Update to the count: 4,988,179 total votes registered, Joe Biden's lead grows to 12,427. We've also added two more counties to the certification list, bringing us to 78 of 159.
8:55 a.m. | When these statements swirl around with vague allusions to "allegations" about irregularities in Georgia, it's important to remember what has in fact been alleged so far. It's not a long list:
8:30 a.m. | One note on the Trump team's recount requests: It's not clear what exactly they mean by a "full comparison" of absentee ballots and in-person ballots cast, but the Secretary of State's Office has offered those numbers at varying points both before (when they were updating early vote counts) and after Election Day.
8:20 a.m. | President Trump's campaign just released a statement from Rep. Doug Collins, who will be leading the president's team monitoring recount efforts here in Georgia.
The statement lays out three formal requests for that process: One, a "full comparison of absentee ballots cast and in-person and provisional ballots cast throughout the state." Two, a "check for felons and other ineligible persons who may have cast a ballot." The third request is for a "full hand-count of every ballot cast in each and every county."
The statement said the president's team would petition courts to order these measures if the Secretary of State's Office does not institute them.
8:15 a.m. | If you're wondering exactly how many votes there are left to count - something like equivalent to a high school population, or about a few thousand. Those vast majority of those are going to be provisional ballots counties are still sorting through.
7:55 a.m. | Update to secretary of state's site now reflects a 12,337 vote lead for Joe Biden. The full statewide vote tally now stands at 4,987,878, still with 76 counties certified.
7:30 a.m. | Here's your state of play for the morning: 76 of 159 counties have now certified their results to the state, which means we're about halfway to finally having an official statewide result.
That leaves 83 counties still to report, with President-elect Joe Biden's lead over President Trump at 11,413 votes.
The total vote count now stands at 4,986,554.