[ad_1]
Georgia has confirmed that there will be a full manual recount of its electoral votes in the United States after the result in the state is too close to be announced.
President elect Joe biden Guides Donald trump by about 14,000 votes out of the nearly five million votes counted.
Almost all the ballots have been processed.
Election officials announced an audit of the result, which means that a full count is triggered.
“Since the margin is so narrow, a full, manual count will be required in each county,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at a news conference.
He wants the count to start at the end of the week and hopes it will last until the certification deadline of November 20.
The Georgia rollover would be seismic. Honestly, it can’t be overstated. Going from red to blue would have seemed like some kind of crazy dream a few years ago; a few months ago, maybe even a few weeks. No longer.
The state has consistently been on the side of a Republican presidential candidate for decades.
The last time they voted for a Democratic candidate was in 1992 when Bill Clinton won.
But if the uninformed outside this state thought this time was a guaranteed solid red, they haven’t been watching the silent revolution that is happening inside Georgia for the past few years.
This is a state where we find huge racial divisions; an abyss of social inequality and a renewed massive enthusiasm for voting among the black community.
And this about two weeks before Election Day.
Many people took to the streets of Atlanta when Joe Biden was announced as the winner of the American elections.
Atlanta is among the richest cities in the United States, but it has one of the highest crime rates. It is also the cradle of the country’s civil rights movement.
The place where one of the nation’s most famous sons comes from, and Martin Luther King’s legacy of non-violent civil unrest seeps through everything here.
We saw long lines of primarily black voters in the run-up to Election Day.
Some had waited eleven hours; another four, three, two hours outside the early voting centers to make sure your voice is heard.
And they were completely determined this time, their voice should be heard loud and clear – and it should be told.
The Black Voters Matter campaign was working around the clock to unite its community, many of whom, frankly, had lost faith in the voting system. They had teams of youth running down the garden paths, sliding voting posters into the cracks of the front doors and leaving them on the steps.
They were organizing free transport convoys to take the young, old, frail and carless to cast their vote. They held rallies and electoral meetings. Phones hit.
Despite the recount, Georgia Democrats firmly believe they have won the state.
So why and how did Georgia get to this point?
Voters in Georgia campaigned tough for historic black voter turnout
Several converging factors: First, about a million new voters registered in this 2020 contest, many believed to be young and black.
The state, and Atlanta in particular, has seen a large influx of black, Hispanic, and Latino residents from elsewhere in search of work and, while it is not a monolithic voting bloc, many tend to be viewed as more left-wing, and the third is an African American politician named Stacey Abrams.
Abrams was the Democratic candidate for governor in 2018.
He was about to win, but claimed that his Republican rival, Brian Kemp, who was also responsible for organizing the elections, had stolen it.
Then there were multiple complaints about fewer polling stations; confusing identification laws; the deprivation of rights of many of those who were eliminated from the electoral roll due to minor differences in identity, such as the lack of a script, and the malfunction of many of the electronic voting machines.
An investigation found that his suspicions were well founded.
340,000 people were found to have been improperly removed from the voter rolls without notice; Secretary of State Kemp, a Trump loyalist, had previously blocked 53,000 people from registering to vote due to minor discrepancies, such as name spelling or missing initials in state records.
The vast majority of those affected (80%) were black and Ms. Abrams lost by a margin of just 55,000 votes.
Ms. Abrams never relented, but has filed several lawsuits and has continued to be a motivating force among the black community and a strong advocate and fighter for transparent democracy.
She established a Fair Fight campaign last year long before the 2020 presidential race to raise awareness, instigate civil rights action, and mobilize an army of volunteers to confront the rampant voter repression that she believes is happening, not just in Georgia but across the country. country.
Stacey Abrams certainly motivated thousands of black voters who did not vote in 2016
She is seen as a woman who took over the system and may be winning; a black woman who is not prepared to be trampled.
Without a doubt, she motivated thousands of black voters who did not participate in the 2016 presidential race to participate this time. Back then, they were disenchanted and disillusioned, but after the 2018 run for governor, the narrative changed.
Many were convinced that if they had participated, perhaps it could have made a difference.
There is no question that the police killings and the death of George Floyd hit Georgia hard and also fueled the crucial black vote here.
In the run-up to the presidential elections, there were at least two black Americans shot by police in Georgia.
There was a wave of anger in the wake of Floyd’s assassination in May, which spread to the streets of several American cities, but also to Atlanta, which saw an ugly wave of lawless vandalism and business looting.
It was a tragic sign of how deep the racial divisions and sense of social injustice run in the city that proudly houses monuments and a museum to Martin Luther King.
All of this explains in some way the deep suspicion of the state about the suppression of the black vote.
The long lines of early voters in the final weeks leading up to Election Day were seen as part of this by countless people we spoke to who had waited hours.
One of them, Curtis Cheeks, told us, “This is an attempt to dissuade us from voting. It will not work.”
Several hundred voting centers were closed before voting by mail, which also contributed to the long lines.
Fenika Miller was part of the Black Votes Matter group
But we found that anxiety, frustration, doubt were accompanied by boundless enthusiasm and hedonistic excitement never before seen in Georgia.
The parties spotted the potential and the risk in recent weeks with Joe Biden drafting former President Barack Obama to come out in the Georgia election, as well as various stops across the state of his running mate Kamala Harris.
In the final week of the vote, Biden launched ads specifically targeting black voters: “Black Lives Matter,” he said, “there, I’m not afraid to say it.”
Now, in a state that was once considered “unshakable,” the focus will be renewed in the race for Georgia’s two Senate seats, which go to the second round in January.
The Black Votes Matter group was back at work even as the count began: “We have to register tens of thousands more voters for the second round of the Senate,” Fenika Miller said.
Winning both seats would mean that Democrats control the all-important Senate.
“All roads go through Georgia now,” said Toni Watkins of the New Georgia Project. “And this is just the beginning of the construction of a new Georgia.
“This didn’t happen overnight. We’ve been planning and working toward it for years. You can have all the stories you want. We believe Joe Biden has won Georgia and we are going to fight very hard for Senate seats.” too.”
People honked and danced in celebration at Atlanta’s Freedom Park when Biden was finally declared president-elect, and there was a spontaneous explosion of joy, but also palpable relief.
“Has all this left the country and Georgia terribly divided?” I asked a woman. “Oh God yes,” she replied. “We can’t even talk about these things in our family.”
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Another young woman told us: “I feel like in the last four years I have not been able to fly the American flag … without thinking about this guy … Now I can fly the American flag and think about my nation, a country that really has room for me with Kamala Harris, with anyone else. “
But there were also chilling moments. Two groups of supporters clashed with each other outside the State Farm Arena, including heavily armed men and women from both sides.
One of those who supported Biden was Vic Brunson, actor and part-time driver: “I carry this weapon simply to defend myself.
“Not to alarm or intimidate, but just to defend myself.”
When I asked her why she felt like she needed to defend herself, she replied, “Because of the color of my skin, Mom. A lot of people just don’t like the color of my skin.”
A line of heavily armed Trump supporters were quickly chased past those loyal to Biden when the two sides exchanged cat calls.
We ask them the same questions. When I tapped a man on his arm to get his attention, saying “sorry” at the same time, he stepped back slightly and his finger immediately went to the trigger of his gun, such was his alarm.
“We are exercising our constitutional rights,” he said.
“Haven’t you seen them with all their weapons all day?” he asked, pointing to the crowd of Biden supporters.
“We are concerned about security.”
The incident was over within minutes, but it illustrated the suspicion on both sides in this, the state with the closest presidential race of all.
This election has been full of surprises. Georgia may still be one of the most important.
