ATLANTA — "Where are the missing military ballots in Georgia?" President Donald Trump asked Friday on Twitter. "What happened to them?"
In Georgia, a state official answered: There are no missing military ballots.
About 8,410 military overseas ballots were sent out that have yet to be received, Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's voting system implementation manager, said at a Friday afternoon news conference at the state Capitol. If they arrive Friday before 5 p.m. Eastern time and have a postmark of Nov. 3 or earlier, they will be counted.
"That does not mean there's a bucket of 8,410 votes ready to be counted," Sterling said. "That means that there are 8,410 votes that could have been postmarked on Tuesday and could be received by the elections official Friday.
"There are ballots that are going to make it; there are ballots that are not going to make it," he added. "We're going to count all the legal ballots."
As the margin between former Vice President Joe Biden and Trump hovered around 1,500 Friday afternoon, poll workers in a handful of Georgia counties had about 8,000 absentee ballots left to count, the bulk from Gwinnett, a largely Democratic county.
In addition to the military ballots that have not been received, about 13,000 provisional ballots were still pending, although not all will be accepted.
Sterling cautioned anyone who assumed the Georgia race was settled.
"Yes, Biden's ahead by 1,585 votes," he said. "But that could change in the next few days, given the universe of votes that are out there. He could exchange his lead, he could stay the same, or President Trump to come back into play. There is still time in the universe of ballots to allow for that."
