Stacey Abrams’s Message to U.S. Voters: ‘Be Patient’

Stacey Abrams is coming out with an encouraging message for voters.

“We cannot call this election before we have the answer,” she told People. “The reality is that a delay does not mean the election has been tampered with. It means the process is working, because it’s going to take some time to count all of these ballots.”

The pandemic is expected to lead a higher-than-normal number of Americans to vote by mail this election season, which Trump has used to try to convince people that the election results will be rigged despite that states already largely conduct elections by mail without issue.

Stacey encouraged voters to “make a plan” and to vote early.

“You want all the time in the world to get there, so the media needs to talk about this election season and election days,” she said. “Don’t make it a single day because then people panic — or worse, they wait and delay.”

Stacey, who was the first Black woman to be nominated to run for governor by either major party in any state, added, “I would rather have patience and accuracy than speed and autocracy. We don’t want speed. We want accuracy. And that means we need people to be patient.”

We love you, Stacey.