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ATLANTA – A rift among Republicans in Georgia exploded in public view on Monday as outgoing state senators, both locked in fierce fighting for their seats, lashed out at Republican officials who oversaw the elections last week and made unfounded allegations that a flawed process lacked transparency.
All-out party war erupted as Georgia’s vote count on Monday continued to show President Trump trailing behind President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia have made the extraordinary decision to issue a joint statement calling for the resignation of Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and condemning the election as an “embarrassment.”
“We believe that when there are failures, they should be exposed – even when it is in your own party,” said the senators in their statement, which did not make any specific allegations or elaborate on what they believed Mr. Raffensperger had failed. , except to accuse him of “mismanagement and lack of transparency”.
“Fair elections are essential to the foundation of our democracy,” they added. “The Secretary of State failed to organize honest and transparent elections. He has let the Georgian people down and he should resign immediately.
Mr. Raffensperger dismissed their allegations as “laughable”.
“Let me start by saying that this will not happen,” Raffensperger said of the resignation request.
“I know the emotions are running high,” he added. “Politics are involved in everything right now. If I were Senator Perdue, I would be irritated to be in a second round. And the senators and I are all unhappy with the potential outcome for our president.
He argued that his office had been transparent, holding regular briefings and urgently updating the vote count. He claimed the reporting process had been orderly and legal and noted that his office had sent investigators to investigate allegations of potential illegal voting. He also noted that he had a monitor appointed to oversee the election in Fulton County, home to much of Atlanta, which he called “one of our long-standing Democratic counties.” .
Discord grew as election results in Georgia, a reliable Republican stronghold in recent years, disrupted the state and the national GOP With nearly all the ballots counted, Mr Biden leads Mr Trump by about 11,400 votes, and Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler were forced into run-off races against the Democrats – crucial elections that could determine control of the Senate.
Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler’s joint statement reflected the rift between Republicans in the state, but it has also happened that so many party members have continued to support Mr Trump as he falsely insists that the election was stolen from him. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Mr. Trump had “every right to review the allegations and call for recounts.”
Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican who was the former senior election official before his 2018 election, sought to find common ground on Monday. While urging Raffensperger to take seriously any accusation of fraud or impropriety surrounding the election, he also did not join in any convictions of his successor.
“Given the close result and the record number of postal and postal ballots issued in this election, this must be a wake-up call for the Secretary of State’s office to seriously examine all allegations. of voting irregularities that were made ”, Cody Hall, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a press release Monday. “Georgians deserve every legal vote to be counted to have full confidence in the outcome of our elections.”
On Monday morning, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who is also a Republican, told CNN he had seen no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.
“We haven’t had any sort of high credible incidents at our level yet and so we will continue to make sure that the opportunity to make sure every legal ballot is counted is there,” he said.
Some conservatives have expressed concern that the wave of accusations challenging the electoral process could depress the votes of Republican voters, who may not stand in the January second round if they do not trust the legitimacy of the electoral process. Some political analysts have warned that such attacks could backfire on them with devastating consequences as the party braces for bitter clashes between senators and their opponents.
“Trump is going to cost the GOP in the Senate,” Erick Erickson, a Georgia-based conservative commentator, written on twitter on Sunday. “His supporters integrate the fact that the elections in Georgia were stolen, so why even try.”
With their statement, Ms Loeffler and Mr Perdue, who have both long professed their loyalty to Mr Trump, essentially doubled down on that sentiment, signaling that their campaigns may be more about transforming the conservative base of Trump supporters than being reposition. at the political center.
In the January 5 run-off, Ms. Loeffler will face a challenge from Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta; Mr. Perdue is running against Jon Ossoff, managing director of a media production company. None of them received at least 50% of the vote in last week’s election.
Mr. Raffensperger, a civil engineer and former state legislator, was elected Secretary of State in 2018 after receiving a glowing endorsement from Mr. Trump, who said Mr. Raffensperger would be a “fantastic Secretary of State”. Mr Raffensperger succeeded Mr Kemp, who was criticized by Democrats during his time as Secretary of State for supporting what they described as widespread voter suppression tactics, often in the name of the fight against electoral fraud.
As a candidate, Raffensperger also focused on electoral security issues, saying he was running “to ensure that only American citizens vote in our elections”.
“Georgian voters hired me, and voters will be the ones to fire me,” Raffensperger said in his statement on Monday. “As Secretary of State, I will continue to fight every day to ensure a fair election in Georgia, that every legal vote counts and illegal votes don’t count.”
In an earlier briefing on Monday, Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager for Mr Raffensperger’s office, sought to debunk the various allegations that had been circulating and said polling day had passed. smooth after long queues sometimes during early voting.
He noted that the average wait time to vote last Tuesday was two minutes.
“The facts are the facts, whatever the results,” he said, adding: “In this state, this time this election on Election Day has been an incredible success.”
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