Hatchett declares victory over 50th District

The recount for the State Senate District 50 runoff is still yet to be scheduled in Stephens County.

According to Stephens County Registrar Eureka Gober, the board of electors has yet to be notified when the recount will need to take place.

However, this didn’t stop Republican Candidate Bo Hatchett, who initially won the election by just 37 votes, from declaring victory on his Facebook page Tuesday.

Hatchett writes quote, “With all of the votes accounted for, we have won by a 37-vote margin. I am grateful to the election commission staffs who diligently made sure every vote was counted. Though a recount has been requested by my opponent, our campaign has no reason to believe that a recount would alter the outcome of this race. One week has already passed since election day, and more will pass before we will have results from a recount. We feel that it would be a disservice to our party to sit idly by over the next few weeks, and we feel led to begin our work fighting to turn out the Republican vote in November,” end quote.

As WNEG News told you earlier this week, Republican candidate Stacy Hall requested the recount after Hatchett won the election by a small margin.

On Monday, Hall issued a press release announcing he would exercise his right to call for a recount.

The count as of Wednesday morning was Hatchett with 12,492 votes to Hall’s 12,455 votes giving Hatchett 50.07% of the votes to Hall’s 49.93%.

Since Tuesday, several of the eight counties in the 50th district have reported and certified provisional ballots.

In Banks County, both Hatchett and Hall each received one provisional vote.  In Habersham County, Hatchett received an additional three provisional votes.

Hatchett also picked up one additional provisional vote in Rabun County. And in Towns County, Hall picked up six additional provisional votes and Hatchett picked up four more provisional votes.

That gave Hatchett an additional nine votes overall and Hall seven additional votes.

Following Stephens County’s recount, a winner will be announced to face Democrat Dee Daley of Rabun County in the November General Election.

WNEG News will continue to follow this story and bring you additional details as they become available.