Republican Calls Out Trump on Voting Claims

Georgia's secretary of state describes pressure he's under to deliver a GOP victory
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 16, 2020 7:00 PM CST
Republican Calls Out Trump on Voting Claims
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference last week in Atlanta.   (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

President Trump's claims of crooked voting in Georgia, including the state's recount, have been flagged by Twitter as potentially bad information. But now the claims have been fact-checked by the official in charge of elections there, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In response to Trump saying that his campaign observers were not allowed in counting rooms by Georgia election officials, his fellow Republican posted an answer on Facebook, the Hill reports. "The state of Georgia placed the responsibility of recruitment of monitors solely on both parties," Raffensperger wrote. "Don’t have credentials? Call your state party and demand monitor credentials. Find them horribly disorganized? Show up to their office and demand credentials." Trump also has pushed conspiracy theories about the company that made the voting machines Georgia uses; Raffensperger said it's an American company, not Venezuelan.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Raffensperger described the pressure he's under from Trump and other Republicans to have enough absentee ballots tossed out to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's close victory in the state; Biden is 14,000 votes ahead at the moment. One text said: "You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it." It's all "disillusioning," Raffensperger said, "particularly when it comes from people on my side of the aisle." He said that there's no evidence of fraud that could have changed the election results, but that all accusations will be investigated. The hand-counted audit now underway will show the Dominion machines are accurate, Raffensperger said, adding that some counties have already reported that their hand recounts match the earlier machine count exactly. (More Georgia stories.)

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