Stacey Abrams’ Georgia gubernatorial campaign amassed nearly three dozen lawyers on Friday to challenge the validity of the Georgia gubernatorial election.
The Associated Press (AP) reported her team amassed nearly three-dozen lawyers who will draft a petition, along with affidavits from voters and would-be voters who argue that they were allegedly disenfranchised during the election.
Abrams could decide as early as Friday whether to go to court. Under Georgia election law, a losing candidate can challenge the result of an election based on “misconduct, fraud or irregularities … sufficient to change or place in doubt the results.”
Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’ campaign chair, said that her legal team is “considering all options,” which also includes federal court remedies. Some Democratic legal observers note Abrams would be dependent on statues that set a high bar for the court to intervene.
Abrams Republican challenger, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, has held the lead and is expected to be declared the winner on Friday, charged that Abrams has led a “publicity stunt” and her refusal to concede the election serves as a “ridiculous temper tantrum.”
Abrams faces a narrow path to winning the Georgia gubernatorial election. Preliminary election results show Kemp winning with about 50.2 percent of the vote, which puts him with over 18,000 voters over the threshold required to win by a majority and avoid a December 4 election runoff.
Lawrence-Hardy told the AP that Abrams believes that many of her supporters, many of them minority and low-income voters who do not regularly vote, went to the polls and ran into electoral barriers, although she did not say what barriers they were.
“These stories to me are such that they have to be addressed,” said Lawrence-Hardy. “It’s just a much bigger responsibility. I feel like our mandate has blossomed. … Maybe this is our moment.”
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