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Georgia’s too close presidential competition turned into a brawl among Republicans on Monday as the state’s top election official rejected calls by his two U.S. senators to step down for disputing unfounded allegations by President Trump’s election fraud.
On Monday morning, Gabriel Sterling, a longtime Republican who manages Georgia’s electoral system, took to a lectern on Capitol Hill to clearly and neutrally dismiss criticism of electoral illegalities in Battlefield State of the South as “fake news” and “disinformation”.
“Hoaxes and nonsense,” Sterling said. “Don’t accept these things. Find reliable sources. “
Hours later, GOP senses David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler – who are each in a runoff on Jan.5 that will determine control of the chamber – called on Sterling boss Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to step down for allegedly mismanaging the state. elections.
“It won’t happen,” Raffensperger said.
Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are no longer essential to decide the election. Democrat Joe Biden has already won 290 electoral votes – 20 more than needed to win the White House.
With Biden leading Trump in Georgia by more than 12,000 votes – 0.25% of the total – Republicans across the state are nonetheless locked in a civil war as the presidential race heads for a recount. The upheaval shows how Trump’s persistent and unfounded allegations of fraud and his refusal to concede the election to Biden are dividing not only the country, but his own party.
The back-and-forth began Monday morning when the Secretary of State’s office held one of its regular press conferences, with Sterling briefing reporters on the state of the vote count and debunking false information.
But this time he went further to push back against allegations of voter fraud.
“The facts are the facts, whatever the outcome,” Sterling said.
“Our job is to get it right for the voters and the Georgian people and for the people of the United States to ensure that the results of these elections are correct and trustworthy,” he added. “At the end of the day – it doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you are on, whatever candidate you have backed – you can trust and believe in the outcome of these things.”
Within hours, Perdue and Loeffler, eager to stoke Trump supporters ahead of the January election, called on Raffensperger to step down.
“We believe that when there are failures, they should be exposed – even when it is in your own party,” Perdue and Loeffler said in a joint statement. “The Secretary of State failed to organize honest and transparent elections. He has let the Georgian people down and he should resign immediately.
Raffensperger, in turn, was quick to respond.
“Georgian voters hired me, and voters will be the ones who fire me,” Raffensberger said.
“Was there an illegal vote?” he added. “I’m sure there was. And my office is investigating all of this. Is he increasing the numbers or the margin needed to change the outcome by giving President Trump the electoral votes for Georgia? It’s unlikely. “
Before long, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, former Secretary of State, entered the fray.
“Given the close result and the record number of mail and mail ballots issued in this election, this must be a wake-up call for the Secretary of State’s office to seriously examine all the allegations that have been made. “Said Cody Hall, press secretary for Kemp. “Georgians deserve to have full confidence in the outcome of our elections.”
It could be weeks before Georgia completes its recount. A candidate can only request a recount once the election results have been certified. Individual counties have until Friday to certify their results, and then the secretary of state must certify statewide results by November 20.
Reports rarely change election results.
In more than 5,500 statewide elections since 2000, the FairVote group reports that there have been 31 recounts. Three annulled the results of an election.
There have been two statewide presidential recounts in the same period – the 2000 Florida recount in the contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore and a Wisconsin recount requested by the presidential candidate. Green Party Jill Stein in 2016. In both cases very few votes shifted and the original winner remained the winner after the recount.
Over the past few days, Republicans in a number of battlefield states have found themselves in the uncomfortable position of pushing back as Trump and his supporters have raised allegations of unproven electoral fraud: faulty machines and dumps in midnight, missing military ballots and votes after legal deadlines.
After Trump and other GOP groups filed a barrage of fraud lawsuits in the tightly contested states of Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania – most of which were fired – thousands of Trump worshipers gathered in state capitals across the country over the weekend to hold “Stop the Steal” rallies.
In Arizona, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey last week advised his fellow Republicans not to jump to conclusions before the end result. “We are following established Arizona election law to the letter,” Ducey said.
But perhaps nowhere has the debate been more heated than in Georgia – a state Democrats haven’t adopted for nearly 30 years – where Republicans filed a lawsuit the next day. the ballot to prevent the “illegal counting of ballots received after the election” in Chatham County, which includes Savannah. The petition was dismissed the next day by a state judge who found no evidence to support the claims.
The office of Georgia’s Secretary of State has in the past come under scrutiny in close elections.
In 2018, Democrats accused then Secretary of State Kemp of suppressing voters on the eve of his gubernatorial run against Democrat Stacey Abrams. After Kemp won by just 1.4 percentage points, Abrams refused to concede, accusing Kemp’s office of “gross management.”
This year is different, however, as Georgia’s Republican election officials face heavy criticism from their own party.
Over the past week, Sterling, who as a student was interned as part of Newt Gingrich’s recount effort and became state political director for George HW Bush and Dan Quayle, assured the Georgians for the integrity of the electoral process.
Monday that meant going through the weeds:
No, he said, there was no software problem with the state’s new Dominion voting system. While there have been previous reports from Michigan, using the same machines, of a problem or software glitch, what really happened was that an employee from a small county of Michigan made a simple reporting error under difficult circumstances.
Reports of ballots thrown into a Spalding County dumpster, he said, were also false. After a video circulated on social media claiming to show people apparently diving into a dumpster for discarded ballots, the state sent investigators. They found no ballots, just empty security envelopes.
Reports of almost twice as many ballots in Gwinnett County as the overall vote were also false, he said. Under the National Voting Rights Act, the rapidly diversifying county must use two languages - Spanish and English – and that doubles the number of pages on their ballots. The system was flagging ballots when they were in fact scanned pages.
Although Sterling said he understood some Republicans were upset with the outcome, he insisted that no one should be surprised the race was close – not after Kemp narrowly beat Abrams in 2018.
“There was a description that Georgia suddenly went from Republican for years to Democrat,” he said. “None of this is sudden. None of this is really surprising for experts to follow what is happening in Georgia. And I don’t think you can say it’s a huge turnaround with Biden leading by around 10,353 votes. (The total has increased since Sterling spoke.)
Sterling said the state would likely find that some people voted illegally or voted twice.
“It will be found,” Sterling said. “Is it 10,353?” Unlikely.”
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