Georgia Republican election official says Trump’s bogus election fraud claims are undermining democracy

Republican election officials in Georgia continued on Sunday to refute Donald Trump’s false allegations of electoral fraud, as the outgoing president tries to pressure the governor to help undo President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the State.

“The president’s statements are false, they are disinformation,” Gabriel Sterling, head of voting system implementation for Georgia, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning. “They are stoking anger and fear among his supporters.”

“It undermines democracy,” said Sterling, who is a Republican. “We have to get to a point where responsible people are acting responsibly.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger also countered the president’s baseless allegations of voter fraud Sunday morning in an interview on “This Week” with ABC.

“We never found systemic fraud, not enough to overturn the elections,” he said.

Republican election officials made their comments a day after Trump appeared at a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, where he was campaigning for Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who face the run-off election. There he continued to claim without evidence that the election was stolen from him.

The event aimed to encourage participation for the Jan.5 run-off, which will determine the balance of power in the Senate.

“We are all deeply troubled by the lies, the cheating, the theft, the theft that happened with our election,” Trump said at the rally.

The votes in Georgia were hand told and confirmed Biden’s victory. The results were certified on November 20.

“The President owes it to every American to ensure that every legal vote is counted and that every illegal vote is not,” said Courtney Parella, deputy national press secretary for Trump’s campaign.

Trump’s allegations about the integrity of the vote come at a crossroads, with the second round of the Senate election just weeks away. The president pushes Gov. Brian Kemp to demand an audit of ballot signatures and to call a special session of the legislature in an effort to overturn Biden’s victory.

“It’s time for the leaders of the national security community, the Republican Party, to stand up, accept the results and move on,” said Chris Krebs, former director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency at the Department of Homeland Security.

Krebs, a longtime Republican who was sacked by Trump last month, appeared on “Face the Nation” on CBS Sunday morning.

“Every case or court file has been rejected by the courts,” he said. “And so, any fraud claim, any security claim, any sort of stuff like that, we just don’t see any evidence to back it up.

“It’s time to move on,” Krebs said. “You should have confidence, especially Georgian voters, should have confidence in the elections. They are due out for the second round of the Senate on January 5.”