Trump’s election claims in leaked call are ‘provably false,’ GA official says. Here’s a breakdown
An exasperated Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system implementation manager, spent much of his news conference Monday again debunking false claims and conspiracy theories pushed by President Donald Trump and his supporters on the heels of a leaked call where the president falsely claimed he won the state.
“This is all easily, provably false,” Sterling said. “Yet, the President persists. And by doing so, undermines Georgians’ faith in the election system — especially Republican Georgians.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger did not appear before reporters one day after the Washington Post published audio and a transcript of an hour-long conference call between Trump and his representatives, and Raffensperger and members of his office over November’s election results.
On the call, Trump again repeated claims that voter fraud in Georgia cost him the state. He called the results “a scam” and pleaded with Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” — one more than President-elect Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state. Trump claimed November’s “scam” could result in low Election Day turnout for the state’s Republican U.S. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue ahead of the Jan. 5 election.
Raffensperger and members of his office pushed back against Trump’s claims.
Among the claims Sterling debunked Monday include:
- Ballots at State Farm Arena were not counted multiple times but some were rescanned under normal ballot processing steps. Suitcases full of mystery ballots did not appear.
- A hand audit of Georgia’s presidential race confirmed the outcome and proved vote flipping did not occur in Georgia.
- Only 74 felons — not 2,056 as the president claimed — potentially voted in the November election, according to the secretary of state office and Georgia Department of Corrections data. The number is likely lower, Sterling said.
- Trump’s legal team claims 66,248 people under the age of 18 voted. But no one under the age of 18 voted, Sterling said. Four voters requested their absentee ballots before they were 18, but those voters turned 18 by election day.
- Trump claims 2,423 people voted without being registered. Sterling said that’s not possible in the state of Georgia because there’s no way for a ballot to be issued to a person without being registered to vote.
- Trump claims 10,315 votes were from dead residents. Sterling said data from the state’s vital records department show potentially two cases thus far.
“We’ve seen nothing in our investigations of any of these data claims that shows there are nearly enough ballots to change the outcome of the election,” Sterling said. “(Secretary Raffensperger and I) have said since Nov. 3, there is illegal voting in every single election in the history of mankind because there are human beings involved in the process.”
As of Jan. 4, 3,037,743 votes have been cast in the January runoffs. Incumbents Loeffler and Perdue are facing off against Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. The election will decide the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
“If you’re a Georgia voter, if you want your values reflected by your elected officials, I strongly beg and encourage you to go vote tomorrow,” Sterling said. “Do not let anybody discourage you. Do not self suppress your own vote. Do not make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. ... Don’t let anybody steal your vote that way.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 5:19 PM.