GA Election: Biden Called As President, GA Still Undecided

Updated at 10:25 a.m. Sunday

GEORGIA — Democrat Joe Biden will become the 46th U.S. president after unofficial election results in Pennsylvania, with 20 electoral votes, put him over the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency, the Associated Press and other news organizations have projected. Georgia has not yet been called, although Biden leads in the state.

Pennsylvania's vote tally flipped to favor Biden on Friday morning as numerous mail-in votes were counted in the historically Democratic-leaning Philadelphia area. Pennsylvania began counting mail-in ballots after those cast on Election Day were tallied. The Election Day vote favored Trump.

Biden also overtook Trump in Georgia, breaking through Trump's hold on the South, and trailed the president by a thin margin in North Carolina on Saturday. Both states remained too close to call Saturday.

Biden increased his lead over Trump overnight in Georgia. As of Sunday morning, Biden has roughly 10,000 more votes in the Peach State.

While Georgia inches closer to tipping for Biden, many political activists and pundits credited former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for sparking voter registration efforts that brought disenfranchised residents to the polls.

After narrowly losing the 2018 governor’s race to Republican Brian Kemp, Abrams founded Fair Count to advocate for electoral reform and educate voters nationwide.

“Stacey absolutely deserves her accolades,” said Nikema Williams, the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia and the U.S. Representative-elect for the state’s 5th district seat that was left vacant by the death of John Lewis.

“Stacey was out there talking to people all across the state,” Williams told Bloomberg News. “She gave us the hope to believe that we have power in our voices.”

The counting of long-awaited Gwinnett County votes was halted Friday night after the county said technical issues stopped election officials from processing more votes.

But when provisional ballots from Fulton County came in overnight, Biden widened his lead over Trump. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that, "2,000 military, overseas and provisional ballots is also in the queue. Fulton, Georgia’s most populous county, said it will finish counting its last 4,500 provisional, military and overseas ballots by Saturday morning."

Additionally, the paper said that, "county elections offices are still processing several thousand outstanding absentee ballots in Floyd, Laurens and Taylor counties."

Biden's lead was 7,248 Saturday morning, according to the Secretary of State's Office. Trump had 49.31 percent of the vote, with 2.454 million votes, to Biden's 49.45 percent and 2.461 million votes.

Poll workers continued to count ballots on Friday, and some counties reported they may not be finished until this weekend.

With how few votes separate Trump and Biden, a recount in Georgia seems likely, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a brief media appearance Friday afternoon.

"Right now, Georgia remains too close to call; out of the approximately 5 million votes cast, we'll have a margin of a few thousand," Raffensperger said.

The focus for election workers remains to "make sure every legal vote is counted and recorded," he added. "With a margin that small, there will likely be a recount in Georgia."

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Gabriel Sterling, voting implementation manager in the secretary of state's office, said Friday afternoon there were roughly 4,000 outstanding ballots still needing to be counted.

"We've never had to handle this volume of paper before," Sterling said. "Normally, 5 percent of votes (in Georgia) are absentee ballots; this time it is one-third of votes."

Sterling likened the margin in Georgia to the size of "less than a large high school"; therefore, he anticipates that whoever loses the election will ask for a recount. However, Sterling said the election may not be decided for another two weeks, and a recount cannot happen until the election is certified, and could take five days.

Friday was the deadline to return military/overseas ballots, to verify provisional ballots and for voters to "cure" absentee ballots, WSB-TV reported. The secretary of state's office told the station that 17,000 had been returned and counted, but there were nearly 9,000 more that were eligible to be counted if they arrived by 5 p.m. Friday. Sterling said the department does not know how many military votes will come in, but he said it will be "more than zero, but less than 8,890 votes."

Related: Advocates Race To Find Georgia Voters Who Cast Bad Ballots

While the state, and nation, waits for Georgia to declare a winner in the presidential election, demonstrations have been planned for Saturday in Atlanta.

Two election-related demonstrations are set for Saturday between noon and 1 p.m. in Atlanta. The two rallies will be "Count Every Vote," billed as a rally to support the election results, and "Stop The Steal," organized by a county Republican Party.

Gov. Brian Kemp urged state election officials to be transparent as the vote count continued in several counties Friday afternoon, and to investigate any allegations of election fraud. He urged transparency as Trump and his supporters try to sow doubt about election results in multiple states, including Georgia, although the campaign has produced no proof of widespread fraud.

Kemp issued a statement about the election, along with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Speaker David Ralston.

"Free and fair elections are the foundation of our American government," the trio said. "Any allegations of intentional fraud or violations of election law must be taken seriously and investigated. We trust that our Secretary of State will ensure that the law is followed as written and that Georgia's election result includes all legally cast ballots — and only legally cast ballots. We will continue to follow this situation to ensure a fair and transparent process."

Related: Georgia U.S. Senate Race: Perdue, Ossoff Could Face Runoff

Both Georgia seats in the U.S. Senate appear headed to runoff elections, which one candidate said was due to strong voter registration efforts.

Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is trying to unseat GOP incumbent Sen. David Perdue, spoke to CNN at 12:30 a.m. Friday.

"It's clear that Georgia is the most competitive state in the county. It's not just me, it's also Rev. (Raphael) Warnock in the other race, that will determine the balance of power in the Senate," Ossoff said. "Voters are fed up with pandemic, fed up with politicians trying to take away their health care."

Ossoff said seeing Georgians stand in long lines to cast their ballots and demand better representation from their leaders makes him optimistic heading to a runoff.

He credited the work of former gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams and others in the past 10 years to register people to vote.

As ballots are counted, the lead that Perdue had over Ossoff has dwindled and fell to 49.78 percent early Friday for the Republican, compared with 47.90 percent for Ossoff. If this holds, the two will face off in a Jan. 5 runoff election.

As of 8:12 a.m. Saturday, Perdue led Ossoff by 93,021 votes, according to the state elections website.

Currently, 49.78 percent of the vote have been cast for the incumbent Republican, while 47.90 percent of ballots have been cast for Ossoff.

Perdue tweeted his support Thursday night for the president's unproven claims of widespread voter fraud in the states where he's lost ground.

"Every lawful vote cast should be counted, once," Perdue tweeted. "If that happens, I believe @realDonaldTrump will be re-elected."