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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has opened investigations into several groups, including one founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for seeking to “aggressively” register “voters. ineligible, out of state, or deceased ”before January 5 of the state. Elections in the second round of the Senate.
Raffensperger’s office said on Wednesday that the inquiries involved groups such as America Votes, Vote Forward and The New Georgia Project – which was founded by Abrams and previously chaired by Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock.
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Raffensperger has for weeks issued warnings against efforts to register people who are not eligible to vote in the second round of elections in Georgia or to encourage people to come to Georgia for the sole purpose of voting.
“I have issued clear warnings on several occasions to groups and individuals who seek to undermine the integrity of the elections in Georgia through false and fraudulent registrations,” Raffensperger said in a statement Wednesday. “The security of the elections in Georgia is of the utmost importance.”
Raffensperger said on Wednesday his office had “received specific evidence that these groups solicited voter registrations from ineligible people who died or lived out of state.”
“I will thoroughly investigate these allegations and take action against anyone who tries to undermine our elections,” he promised.
Raffensperger said earlier this week that America Votes “sends postal voting requests to people at addresses where they have not lived since 1994.”
Vote Forward, he said, “attempted to register a dead Alabama voter, female, to vote here in Georgia.” He also highlighted the New Georgia Project, “which sent voter registration requests to New York.”
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The Secretary of State also referred to “Operation New Voter Registration in Georgia, which tells students in Georgia that they can change their residence in Georgia and then change it after the election.”
Raffensperger’s office also has 23 investigators working on 250 investigations into “credible allegations of illegal voting” and violations of electoral law, he said.
According to Georgia’s code, false registration, that is, a person who registers to vote knowing that he or she does not have the qualifications required by law, is a crime and may be punished by one to 10 years in prison and / or a fine of $ 100,000. .
Raffensperger’s office detailed on Wednesday several cases in which Abrams-Warnock-associated group The New Georgia Project had allegedly solicited out-of-state voters and deceased people. Warnock was chairman of the group until January.
Raffensperger’s office referred to a Fulton County resident who said he received five postcards from The New Georgia Project requesting registration “for the same deceased” and a Cherokee County resident who received a request for registration. ‘New Georgia Project voter registration for his wife who is not eligible for A third person, according to Raffensperger’s office, said the New Georgia Project sent a voter registration request to his daughter who was not registered to vote in Georgia and had not lived in another state for five years, while a fourth person said they received a “package of postcards” at their New York home from the New Georgia Project encouraging people to register to vote in the second round of the Georgia Senate.
Another effort, according to Georgia election officials, Operation New Voter Registration GA, encouraged Emory students to fraudulently register to vote in the Jan.5 run-off. A flyer from the group told the students that “your current residence may be in another state. You are simply changing your state of residence now; and it can be reinstated for future elections (your option). ”
Meanwhile, Vote Forward, a non-profit organization, sent a letter to a long-deceased Alabama resident encouraging her to register to vote, while America Votes, who goes by the name ” the coordination center of the progressive community ”, sent two requests for a postal vote in one week to a person at an address where he had not resided since July 1994.
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The current balance of power for the next Senate following this month’s election is 50 Republicans and 48 Democrats. This means Democrats must win both Georgia ballots to make it a 50-50 Senate. If that happens, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the deciding vote, giving her party a tiny majority in the House.
In Georgia, where state law dictates a second round if no candidate achieves 50 percent of the vote, GOP Senator David Perdue narrowly missed a second round, winning 49.75 percent of the vote. Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff is down by around 87,000 votes.
In the other race, Republican Senator named Kelly Loeffler captured nearly 26% of the vote in a huge special election of 20 candidates to fill the last two years of former GOP Senator Johnny Isakson’s tenure. Democratic second-round candidate Reverend Raphael Warnock won almost 33% of the vote in the first round.
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Paul Conner of Fox News contributed to this report.
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