David Perdue says he’ll unite Republicans, but makes incorrect claim about past GA election
Republican gubernatorial candidate David Perdue told a Columbus crowd Tuesday that he is trying to reunite the party after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and others failed to properly investigate the state’s 2020 presidential election. The former U.S. senator also made incorrect claims about voting during his 2021 Senate runoff.
During a speech at the Muscogee & Harris County Republican Women’s Luncheon, Perdue incorrectly claimed that 235,000 people who did not live in Georgia in November 2020 voted in the January 2021 U.S. Senate runoff.
“I wanted to adjust the law that allowed people to parachute in here after the end of the November election and vote in January,” he said. “(Kemp) said no. (And) 235,000 people showed up and voted in January that did not live in Georgia in November. And not one of those has been investigated.”
When asked where Perdue got the 235,000 voting figure, a spokesperson cited an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article that stated 228,000 new voters cast ballots in the 2021 Senate runoffs. However, these voters did not arrive in the state before the runoffs.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office told the Ledger-Enquirer there were only 104,000 new registrations filed between the end of October, when registration closed for the general election, and the early December runoff registration cutoff. All were verified for county of residence and eligibility.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger issued a warning that moving to the state with the sole purpose of voting and leaving is illegal, and his office did investigate a Republican Florida attorney who claimed he was moving to the state just to vote in the 2021 January runoffs.
Perdue spoke for 23 minutes before taking two questions from the audience. The 2020 presidential election, the 2021 Senate runoffs, Kemp, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and his plans to increase “confidence” in the state’s election system were key topics.
Trump and Kemp
Before Perdue spoke to the crowd of roughly 60 at the Hilton Garden Inn, a video featuring President Donald Trump was played. The former president took shots at Kemp and Abrams during the clip. Trump endorsed Perdue in December, and the pair’s relationship dates back to Trump’s 2016 presidential bid.
“Brian Kemp has to be defeated in the Republican primary,” Trump said. “We cannot let Stacey ‘the hoax’ Abrams win.”
Perdue said he felt compelled to run over the last year. The former senator told the audience he turned down a request from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022 because he wasn’t sure if Kemp would get Trump voters back.
“I’m running for one reason — we are divided,” Perdue said. “I didn’t do it. I’ve tried to fix it, and it’s not been fixed. ...We’re going to get beat if we don’t unite. And my question to you today is if Brian Kemp were capable or willing to pull us together, wouldn’t he have done it already?”
Perdue said claims that he is further dividing the Republican party and making it more difficult for the GOP to defeat Abrams in 2022 are incorrect.
“The people are already divided,” he told the Ledger-Enquirer after the event. “I’m not dividing them anymore by just giving them an alternative.”
The former U.S. senator said he would endorse Kemp if Kemp wins the Republican primary, and Perdue told audience members that he would debate Kemp “anytime, anywhere and anyplace.”
Perdue and “voter integrity”
Perdue filed lawsuits, asked Kemp to hold a special session of the General Assembly and called on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign following the 2020 presidential election. Perdue said he was not trying to overturn an election.
“What I wanted to do all along was to find out what happened and to make sure it didn’t happen again,” he said.
Perdue said he’d take several steps to fix Georgia’s “voter integrity problem.” He garnered claps from most of the audience when he said he’d get rid of Dominion Voting machines. The company provides Georgia with its voting systems. Trump and his supporters pushed conspiracy theories about the company, claiming its machines switched or deleted votes.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has said no widespread voting fraud occurred during the 2020 Georgia election. The federal government is reviewing a confidential report alleging Georgia’s voting touchscreens could be hacked. There’s no indication that machines were hacked in the 2020 election, but election security experts say it could be exploited in the future, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
Perdue said voters would have to use an “imperfect” system in the May primary and the November general election. He compared it to the advice Trump gave to Virginia voters in 2021 as Republican Glenn Youngkin went on to win the governor’s seat.
“We fixed the laws. We know what they did. We’ll be better able to police it ourselves, and we can make this happen,” Perdue said. “We can overwhelm it if we get out and vote.”
Perdue proposed the formation of an election law enforcement agency or a new GBI division to enforce the state’s election law.
“We’ve been trying to get an investigation,” he said.
When Perdue announced his election law enforcement division proposal in January, Kemp spokesperson Cody Hall said Perdue was “admitting his whole campaign was based on a lie” because the proposal recognizes the governor has no legal authority over the administration and investigation of elections.
“That’s absolutely false,” Perdue said to Hall’s response. “They can call a special session. That’s what I asked for. I wasn’t asking for a reversal of the election. ...I was asking for a special session to look into the signature variances and also to see if we could get the law changed to keep people from parachuting in.”
Perdue stressed the importance of restoring “confidence” in Georgia’s voting system as the governor’s race is the “pivotal election” to determine the future of the U.S. Senate majority and the 2024 Presidential Election.
Perdue said he wasn’t concerned that Trump’s claims about the stolen 2020 election would hurt Georgia Republicans like himself in 2022.
“You will not get (the House Majority) or (the Senate majority) if we lose the governor’s race in Georgia in 2020,” Perdue said.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 4:34 PM.