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Stacey Abrams: 'It Was Not a Free and Fair Election' in Georgia

November 20, 2018

Defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who lost to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, challenged the fairness of the election Monday night.

Abrams fought the result of the election for a couple weeks despite being down by more than 50,000 votes, and still refuses to concede she lost fair and square.

"It was not a free and fair election. We had thousands of Georgians who were purged from the rolls wrongly, including a 92-year-old woman who had voted in the same area since 1968, a civil rights leader," Abrams said. "It was not fair to the thousands who were forced to wait in long lines because they were in polling places that were under-resourced, or worse, they had no polling places to go to because more than 300 had been closed. It was not fair to the thousands that were put on hold with their registrations. And it was not fair to those who filled out absentee ballots and, depending on the county you sent it to, it either was counted or not counted, assuming you received it in time."

"Brian Kemp oversaw for eight years the systematic and systemic dismantling of our democracy, and that means there could not be free and fair elections in Georgia this year," Abrams added.

On Sunday, Abrams also questioned the fairness of the election, telling CNN's Jake Tapper that Kemp "has compromised our democratic systems, and that is not appropriate." She refused to say if Kemp was the "legitimate" governor.

On Saturday, Abrams acknowledged Kemp would be the next governor of Georgia, but refused to say she was conceding the election.

"So let's be clear—this is not a speech of concession, because concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true or proper," Abrams said.