President Trump’s lead in Georgia slipped late Thursday afternoon to less than 10,000 votes as people watched to see if the Peach State’s 16 electoral votes would move to Joe Biden, potentially putting him over the top in the presidential election.
As of 6 p.m. EST, Trump was leading by 9,525 votes. The state has roughly 47,000 ballots left to count, and an additional 8,900 requested overseas and military ballots may arrive by Friday’s deadline.
Officials in Fulton County, where much of Atlanta is located, say that they’ve finished counting and will upload the results soon. Democratic-leaning Chatham County, where Savannah is located, had the biggest outstanding ballot count, at 17,157.
As the counting of ballots continued inside State Farm Arena in Atlanta, about 100 pro-Trump supporters gathered outside, skeptical of the process.
Larry Mayo of Brookhaven told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he believed the election was rigged in Biden’s favor and pointed to two Election Day snafus as proof.
“How convenient,” he said about a pipe bursting in the arena early Tuesday, causing a four-hour delay in processing ballots. “They’re cheating. 2016 is going to stand as our last free and fair election.”
State election officials have insisted the ballots are all legitimate, and they are determined to count every one that has been legally cast.
Representatives from both parties have been observing the counting process.
Earlier Thursday, a Georgia judge threw out a lawsuit filed by the state Republican Party and Trump’s campaign that accused officials in Chatham County of mishandling absentee ballots.
The lawsuit was the first in what the Georgia GOP claimed would be a dozen targeting counties that are busy counting more than 60,000 outstanding absentee ballots in the battleground state.
