Kemp vs. Abrams: Georgia governor's race by the numbers

ATLANTA — The Brian Kemp vs. Stacey Abrams gubernatorial race is still on a lot of people's minds three days after the election.

With a clear but narrow lead in unofficial returns, Kemp stepped down Thursday as secretary of state and declared victory in the race. Abrams, however, insists there are votes left to count.

[READ MORE: Kemp declares victory, but Abrams says not so fast]

The Abrams campaign thinks it can find enough provisional and absentee ballots to force the election into a runoff or recount. The deadline was up in most counties Friday at 5 p.m. for voters who cast provisional ballots to resolve any issues they may have had. It was extended to 8 p.m. for DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.

[READ MORE: Abrams' campaign sets up phone banks for voters to check on provisional ballots]

On Friday morning, Kemp had 1.97 million votes and Abrams had 1.91 million votes -- a difference of 1.6 percent.

In order to trigger a recount, Abrams has to find enough votes to lower that number to 1 percent.

"Let's say all the outstanding ballots are for Abrams. She needs about 24,000 outstanding ballots," Georgia Tech professor Michael Lacy told Channel 2 Action News.

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But the math gets tougher if some of those outstanding ballots are for Kemp, even if it's just one out of five.

"Then you need about 60,000 outstanding ballots in order to reach a recount threshold," Lacy said.

So if the numbers stay steady, math shows Abrams would need a minimum of 24,000 outstanding ballots all cast for her just to force a recount -- a runoff would be much more difficult.

Lacey concedes those numbers may not stay steady as more come in. The math shows Abrams has an uphill climb ahead of her.

It's a tricky situation because the math results change as more ballots come in, upping the total number, and no one is completely sure how many outstanding ballots there are still out there.

WATCH his full explanation below:

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