Poll workers in DeKalb County, Georgia, are resorting to hand-scanning some 19,000 ballots after technical difficulties arose at the polling site, election officials said Wednesday.
“Georgia’s voting system provides built-in safeguards, in the form of paper ballots, that allow us to quickly process ballots that are electronically cast,” Erica Hamilton, the director of DeKalb County Voter Registration and Elections, said in a statement.
“These outstanding paper ballots are currently being scanned and the tabulation will be completed as quickly as possible, and in compliance with state guidelines,” the statement continued.
A handful of counties that are Democrat strongholds, which U.S. Senate candidate Jon Ossoff says he expects to win, are still counting votes from the runoff election — which will determine the balance of power in the Senate and both branches of the legislature.
Ossoff is leading former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) by less than a percentage point as of Wednesday morning. That race has not yet been called.
Perdue has said he will “exhaust” all legal options to ensure only legal votes were counted.
In the other runoff race, Democrat Raphael Warnock defeated Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) one point ahead of Loeffler, 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, with 97 percent of precincts reporting.
The Associated Press called that race around 2 a.m. Wednesday morning.
