Politics

Polls close in Georgia, which will decide control of US Senate

Washington, Jan 5 (efe-epa).- Polls began closing Tuesday in the American state of Georgia, where two seats are contested in the US Senate that will decide which party will control the chamber during the first two years in power of President-elect Joe Biden.

Polling places began closing at 7:00 p.m. local time (00:00 GMT Wednesday), although under state law, anyone still in line to vote at that time had the right to vote.

“Stay in line, Georgia. If you’re in line at your polling place at 7pm, you can vote,” Biden wrote on his Twitter account.

Republicans only need to win one of the seats at stake in Georgia to retain control of the Senate until at least 2023, while Democrats should win the two contested seats to wrest the reins of that chamber from the Conservatives.

The day passed with few mishaps in the southern state, and there were no long lines either: The average wait time to vote was one minute, according to Georgia’s voting system manager Gabriel Sterling.

At a news conference Tuesday, Sterling warned that final results probably won’t be known for “a couple of days” due to the need to process early voting and by mail.

There are 7.6 million registered voters in Georgia, of whom about 4.8 million participated in the November elections.

In these elections, more than 3 million people voted early, for which a high turnout was expected a priori.

In the election, Democrat Raphael Warnock, a pastor at an Atlanta church where civil rights leader Martin Luther King, assassinated in 1968, preached, faces Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, who is running for re-election.

In the other race, Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former legislative official and journalist, is running for a seat in the federal Senate with David Perdue, who is also running for re-election.

In both races, the polls give Democratic candidates a slight advantage, but with a difference of less than three percentage points, within the margin of error.

In the November vote, Republicans secured 50 Senate seats and Democrats increased one to their current, for a total of 48.

If the Democratic candidates win Tuesday in Georgia, there will be a 50-seat tie that would leave the momentous decisions in the hands of the vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, who will have the tiebreaker vote in his capacity as president of the Senate. EFE-EPA

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