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Hillary Clinton Predicted This Result For Stacey Abrams "If She Had A Fair Election"

by Joseph D. Lyons
Cindy Ord/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

The Georgia governor's race is really close — so close that the Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams and her team are still working to get all valid provisional ballots counted to push the race into a runoff. Now, other top Democrats are speaking out on the state of the race in Georgia. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton commented on Abrams' race and suggested it wasn't a "fair election." If it was, Abrams would already have won, the former Secretary of State said.

Clinton made the comment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin, Texas, the Austin American-Statesman reported. "If she had a fair election, she already would have won," Clinton said at the event honoring her for her public service.

Abrams has not yet conceded, and the race in Georgia has not been called. The earliest the race is likely to be decided is some time over the weekend. That's because even though Republican Brian Kemp has a slim majority, the Abrams camp has successfully argued that there are enough provisional ballots still in play that state law could end up requiring a runoff. A court decision says that the election results cannot be certified before Friday, and a state law says it must be completed by Nov. 20.

The state of the race on Wednesday afternoon put Kemp ahead with 50.3 percent, which would just narrowly avoid the runoff. Kemp has already stepped down from the job of secretary of state and has declared victory. But Abrams insists there are more votes to be counted.

Her campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo, laid out the case for the ongoing counts in a post on Medium. She argues that 30,823 ballots have not been counted — as many as 33,507 counting overseas votes —whereas the official number from the state is just over 20,000.

"The Secretary of State office is lying about the number of votes cast, as well as the number of votes still to be counted," Groh-Wargo writes. "How do we know? We went to the counties directly to see the votes and count them for ourselves." Bustle has reached out to the Georgia secretary of state's office for comment.

The secretary of state's office put out a release on Wednesday noting that the new secretary, Robyn A. Crittenden, has followed the rulings required by a federal judge earlier in the week. That includes establishing a toll-free number and website for Georgia voters to check to see if their provisional ballots were accepted.

Meanwhile Kemp campaign spokesperson Ryan Mahoney has attacked the Democrats' efforts to keep counting the votes. "While Democrats attempt to undermine Brian Kemp’s convincing victory seven days ago, we remain confident in the local elections officials who are certifying the results," Mahoney told the Washington Post.

Clinton may relate to Abrams position in Georgia and her efforts there, given how new voting laws across the country — especially in places like Wisconsin — could have hurt her bid for the presidency in 2016.

If the Georgia election race goes to a runoff, it's safe to say Abrams can count on Clinton's support.