The race for governor in Georgia has been tumultuous as the election pitted the Republican candidate Brian Kemp against the democrat candidate Stacey Abrams, who stood to be the first African- American woman elected governor.

The two stood on opposing sides of the voting rights debate, Abrams having run a voter registration initiative for multiple years; meanwhile, Kemp as Secretary of State called for and enacted multiple processes to purge voter rolls and require more rigid and detailed oversight of voter registration- all in an attempt to halt voter fraud.

During the two opposing campaigns, reports of Georgia’s strict voter registration rules were released, and were found to have been responsible for over 100,000 submissions being declined, only days before the deadline. Further analysis found that over 70% of those who were declined were African- American, many questioned the reasoning of Kemp and his office who were initiating these processes.

In October, a federal court determined that election officials could not longer reject absentee ballots simply on the basis of mismatched signatures, a measure Kemp had put in place. Just days before Georgia’s citizens headed to the polls, the debate was still raging, the office of Kemp opening an investigation into the Democratic Party in Georgia. Kemp and his campaign did not provide proof after alleging that they were involved in hacking the voter registration system for Georgia.

On Tuesday, voting day, five citizens from Georgia filed in a federal court to halt any of Kemp decision making when it came to the midterm elections, a position which he had been managing in addition to running for the position himself.

As Tuesday came and votes were counted, poll results were closely divided. As of Wednesday morning, Kemp had pushed ahead by 68,000 votes to have 50.4% of the votes. While 99% of the votes had been reported, Abrams has not decided to concede. Many of the areas left to fully report their results could hold surprising numbers, which makes a recount or a runoff election in December a possibility.

Until all of the votes are in in, it remains to be seen who will be Georgia’s governor, but it may be longer until the effects such discussions and turmoil surrounding voting rights is fully understood.