ATLANTA – Stacey Abrams' campaign and legal team are preparing an unprecedented legal challenge in the unresolved Georgian governor's race, which could leave the state's Supreme Court decide to force another round of voting .

The long-term strategy of the Democrats is based on a law that has never been used in such a debate. It is being discussed as election officials in Georgia appear to be on the verge of making Republican Brian Kemp the winner of a hard-fought campaign marred by accusations of electoral malfeasance.

The best Abrams advisers have submitted his eventual record to the Associated Press, pointing out that the Democratic candidate has not yet made a decision as to the continuation of the procedure once the officials of the state would have certified Kemp as the winner. It could happen Friday night.

Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Chair of the Abrams Campaign, oversees a team of nearly three dozen lawyers who will draft the petition in the coming days, as well as numerous affidavits from potential voters and voters who say they are private the right to vote. Abrams would then decide if it is appropriate to resort to the courts under a provision of the Georgian electoral law allowing losing candidates to challenge the results on the basis of "misconduct, fraud or misconduct". … irregularities … sufficient to alter or cast doubt on the results ".

The legal team "considers all options," said Lawrence-Hardy, including the Federal Court's appeals. But the challenge of the state is the most radical. And some Democratic legal observers have noted that Abrams would be dependent on laws that impose a very high bar for court intervention.

She is already facing a narrow path to the Governor's Mansion. The unofficial results show that Kemp holds about 50.2% of the votes, more than 3.9 million votes. This gives him about 18,000 votes above the threshold required to win by majority and avoid a second round on December 4. The Associated Press does not call the race until the official results are certified by the state authorities.

Abrams alleged that enough irregularities had been made to suggest that at least 18,000 Georgians had lost their ballots or were not allowed to vote.

Lawrence-Hardy told AP that Abrams would consider legal considerations and that she was convinced that many of her supporters – particularly minority and poorer voters who do not regularly visit urns – had heard his call to participate and were encountering obstacles.

"These stories are such that they need to be addressed," said Lawrence-Hardy, who was part of the army of lawyers who had worked on the Bush presidential dispute against Gore in 2000. "It's a much bigger responsibility. great. I have the impression that our mandate has blossomed. … maybe that's our moment.

Kemp, who held the post of election official in the state until two days after the election, when he resigned as secretary of state and proclaimed victory, said the result of the vote would not be counted. His campaign has described the legal maneuvers of Abrams so far as "shame for democracy" and "counting illegal votes".

The circumstances leave Abrams, a rising 44-year-old Democratic star, struggling with a difficult decision. The former state legislator became a national political celebrity with her attempt to become the first black woman in American history to be elected governor. His strategy of presenting himself as a shameless liberal who attracts new voters at the polls echoed in a rapidly changing state. However, Abrams must also take into account its own political future and the consequences of a long legal battle that it might not win.

All of this is happening in the context of President Donald Trump's flawless embrace of nationalism.

Since polling day, Abrams campaigners have stopped trying to vote to help voters determine if their ballots have been counted and to document the reported problems. The idea is to gather a body of evidence to support the claim that the problems could explain Kemp's 18,000 vote margin above the trigger.

The affidavits of election officers reviewed by the PA describe long lines that discourage voters from voting, election officers who do not offer provisional ballots to people who have not registered or who were in the wrong polling place and whose election materials froze and had to be restarted.

Cathy Cox, a Democrat who served as Secretary of State from 1999 to 2007 and is now the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Mercer University, said Georgian law placed a heavy burden on candidates such as Abrams who asks a court to do the same.

"I would say with a great deal of confidence that there was probably never an election … without some irregularities, where a member of the election staff did not commit an election. "mistake," said Cox during an interview. The key, she said, is to prove that someone has made a mistake to the point that it could change the outcome.

Lawrence-Hardy agreed that the law requires a quantitative badysis. She stated that the Abrams team did not have a list of 18,000 voters without the right to vote. The evidence, she said, would consist of hundreds, if not thousands, of examples, accompanied by an badysis of lost votes data projected on the basis of other problems, such as the lack of paper ballots in polling stations where voting machines broke down and voters left long lines.

Cox said the courts must attempt to apply a non-partisan standard of "doubt" to the election. "Would a reasonable person have a reason to doubt this election? A convinced partisan Democrat would not doubt a partisan Republican opponent, "she said.

Abrams and voting rights activists have claimed for months that Kemp had mismanaged the electoral system as a secretary of state, with Abrams often calling Kemp "the architect of the crackdown".

Under Georgian law, Abrams could file an appeal against Kemp or his successor as secretary of state. The challenge must be filed within five days from the date of certification by a trial court of the county where the selected defendant resides. The defendant has between five and ten days to respond, and the presiding judge arranges a hearing within 20 days of this delay, a timetable that could push a dispute well beyond what would have been a second round.

If the judge determines that the election is so flawed that it casts doubt on the results, he may declare the election invalid and request a new vote among the same candidates. Cox called it "the real extreme cure".

A more "surgical" course, she said, would be to affirm the irregularities, but only the order to reopen and certify the certified results once these problems have been solved. The judge could then declare a winner or order a second round if the results are close enough.

The judge could also declare a winner after hearing the evidence, but Cox said it was unlikely because the case would likely depend on votes not counted and there was no way to know before the count which candidate had obtained these votes.

Once the judge has made his decision, the loser has 10 days to appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia.

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