"Close race" expected in Georgia runoff - when the first results could come
Created: 06/12/2022, 21:56
By: Katja Thorwarth
Georgia's runoff for the last vacant Senate seat has begun.
Who will win the race - Walker or Warnock?
The ticker.
Midterms:
In Georgia there is a runoff between Democrats and Republicans.
It's about the last seat in the Senate.
Duel:
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock takes on Republican Herschel Walker.
Read everything about the runoff election in our news ticker.
+++ 9:55 p.m .:
The first results of the runoff could be announced earlier.
Georgia counties are scheduled to begin reporting totals soon after polling stations close at 7 p.m. local time
, according to a
New York Times report.
But according to the Office of the Secretary of State, before the results are announced, a "sanity check" should be carried out to ensure that votes are not invalidated after all.
Therefore, it could take until 11 p.m. at the earliest and therefore 5 a.m. Central European Time before it is clear whether Walker or Warnock will win the race.
Running for the US Senate in Georgia: Democrat Raphael Warnock.
© Sue Dorfman/Imago
Georgia runoff: 'Prepare for a close race'
+++ 18:21:
The polling stations in the state of Georgia in the USA opened at 7 a.m. (1 p.m. CET) and will close their doors at 7 p.m. (local time).
The last votes can be cast until 1 a.m. on Wednesday in the Central European time zone.
There may not yet be any reliable information on the results at this point in time.
"We're preparing for it to be a very close race," Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer of Georgia's secretariat of state, told
CNN
.
US authorities could only provide information on the outcome of the election on Wednesday: "I assume that we will not know by Tuesday evening," Sterling continued.
It depends entirely on the voters, "and they come in droves".
USA: Runoff election for contested Senate seat in the state of Georgia begins
First report from December 6th:
Washington/Atlanta – Four weeks after the midterms, the runoff election for the last seat in the Senate has begun in the US state of Georgia.
The polling stations opened on Tuesday morning (local time).
In the election, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker are again up against each other.
Neither of the two got more than 50 percent of the votes in the first attempt in the congressional election - according to the electoral law in Georgia, a runoff election was therefore necessary.
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The Democrats had already secured a wafer-thin majority in the Senate in the early November election.
You now have the chance to possibly expand this by one seat.
According to German time, the polling stations close on Wednesday.
Runoff election in Georgia: the last seat in the Senate is elected
As of now, the Democrats have 50 out of 100 seats in the Senate, giving them a razor-thin lead.
The reason is that Democratic US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is also President of the Senate, is allowed to vote in a deadlock.
That means even if Republicans win in Georgia, the Senate balance of power would be 50-50, as it has been for the past two years -- and Harris would keep the Democrats a slim majority.
Should the Georgia Democrats win, they would have 51 Senate seats and no longer need Harris to tip the scales.
(ktho/na/dpa)
