Democrats take control of the Senate

Democrats are moving closer to winning control of the Senate as Jon Ossoff continues to lead GOP incumbent Sen. David Perdue. The race is still too close to call, but Ossoff's lead has continued as more votes are counted.

CNN already projected that Democrat Raphael Warnock will win the special Senate runoff election against GOP Senate candidate Kelly Loeffler.

If Ossoff wins his race, there will be a 50-50 split and control of the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris acting as the tie-breaker.

Moments ago, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer congratulated Warnock and Ossoff, saying that “one of the first things” he wants to do as Senate Majority Leader is pass $2,000 stimulus checks.

Remember: CNN has not called the race between Ossoff and Perdue.

GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a staunch Trump ally, said he doesn’t think President Trump’s message to voters – saying that the election was rigged – was "very helpful" for Republicans in the Georgia Senate races.

"It’s a good question, I don't know the answer, necessarily, whether it was helpful or not. He was gonna get blamed either way," he said, when asked if Trump’s message that the election was was rigged was helpful to turn out voters.

Cramer continued,

More than 1 million absentee-by-mail votes have been counted in Georgia, election official Gabriel Sterling said in a press briefing.

He also provided details on the number of absentee ballots that have been checked in but not yet scanned and uploaded as results as of 10 a.m. ET.

"Counties are still putting stuff in, they're also scanning. So these numbers will be a little fluid during the day today. But these are the basic ones we have as of 10 a.m. this morning," he said.

Here's a look at some of the most updated numbers from Sterling:

"The biggest buckets of them are from the metro area with a handful scattered about the state. We have requested of the counties, we don't have a right to direct them, but we have requested they get all of the absentee ballots accounted for as in they received them," Sterling said, adding that he hopes most counties will make the deadline and upload the absentee ballots online by 1 p.m. ET today.

He added:

"Again, I want to remind everybody, these folks are all tired. They've had a long day and a long week and a long month and a long year, but they are doing their best to get these results quickly. I know some people were surprised how quickly results did come in, but that's the advantage of having three races on the ballots."

Gabriel Sterling, the voting systems implementation manager for the Georgia Secretary of State's office, reiterated that President Trump is to blame for Republicans losing key races, including the presidency and now presumably two Senate races.

Remember: Democrat Raphael Warnock will win the special Senate runoff election against GOP Senate candidate Kelly Loeffler, CNN projects. While Democrat Jon Ossoff is leading GOP incumbent Sen. David Perdue, the race is still too close to call.

Sterling said that by telling people their vote doesn't count and "don't come and vote, then you spark a civil war within a GOP that needs to be united to get through a tough fight like this in a state that's been trending – from the point of view of Republicans – from the other direction for years now."

As a Republican he said, "It irritates me."

President-elect Joe Biden released a statement today congratulating Raphael Warnock on his projected win in the Georgia Senate runoff election and paying homage to the "twin powers" of Georgia, Stacey Abrams and Keisha Lance Bottoms. 

Biden says he intends to move forward with key Cabinet nominations while the Georgia results are confirmed.

"My nominees for critical national security positions at State, Defense, Treasury, and Homeland Security have bipartisan support and have been confirmed by the Senate before. They need to be in their jobs as soon as possible after January 20th," he said.

According to Richard Barron, Fulton County Director of Registration and Elections, and Regina Waller, a spokeswoman for the Fulton Co. Board of Elections, there are roughly 7,500 ballots that still have to be adjudicated in Fulton County, which includes matching signatures.  

Waller tells CNN that most of those ballots have been counted but are not included in the total until they are adjudicated.  

After finishing the process with the 7,500 ballots, that will conclude absentee vote by mail until Friday, when they will count the remaining overseas and military ballots that can arrive up until then. 

Barron said that the vote review panel meets at 3 p.m. they will post the latest absentee by mail totals after that. 

Several Senate Republicans are privately pointing the finger squarely at President Trump for the failures in Georgia.

A senior Republican official involved in both Georgia Senate races says of Trump:

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney weighed in on the Georgia Senate races on Wednesday morning, saying:

Romney also commented on today’s joint session of Congress, where many of his colleagues plan to challenge Electoral College results, saying "the gambit we're seeing today is very disappointing."

Data submitted as part of a federal court order shows that USPS moved nearly all of the 471 ballots it processed on Election Day for the Georgia Senate runoff – moving them on-time, and in time to count. 

The total amount of ballots processed by USPS on Election Day is down from its peak in early December — over 16,000 in one day. The data suggests that a significant number of Georgians either sent their ballots in early, or turned in their ballots in-person to election offices or ballots boxes.

The 471 ballots were processed between 80% and 97% on time.

To ensure no ballots would be left behind, the USPS also conducted sweeps of processing facilities yesterday. The final sweep found 210 ballots that the USPS delivered in time to count.

Ballots had to arrive by 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday and military and overseas ballots must arrive by Friday to count.

The data does not include ballots that are being sped up by “local turnaround,” one of the extraordinary measures USPS has implemented since December 28. Local turnaround delivers ballots directly to election officials instead of having it go first to mail processing facilities.