President Donald Trump slammed Georgia’s election system in a speech at the White House on Nov. 5, 2020. (White House video)
Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results are set to be certified again after a federal judge in Atlanta dismissed a major lawsuit Monday that sought to overturn the results and declare President Donald Trump the winner.
Judge Timothy Batten of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled that the suit by attorney Sidney Powell was filed too late and sought “perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election.”
“This, I am unwilling to do,” Batten said.
Monday’s ruling came after Gov. Brian Kemp on Sunday refused a request from some Republican state lawmakers to call a special session to let the General Assembly pick Georgia’s Electoral College members, which the governor said state law does not permit him to do.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger plans to certify the results later Monday showing President-elect Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump in Georgia by about 12,000 votes – the second time a statewide recount has proved Biden to be the winner since the Nov. 3 general election.
Powell, a Texas attorney and staunch Trump supporter, filed suit to de-certify Georgia’s election results and block the state’s 16 Electoral College members from voting for Biden. Her suit focused on alleged issues with Georgia’s voting machines and the process for verifying signatures on mail-in ballots.
Defense attorneys for Raffensperger and the Democratic Party of Georgia, which intervened in the case, argued Powell’s claims lacked evidence beyond speculation from election-worker witnesses and flawed analysis from experts who filed sworn affidavits.
Similar claims have been lodged in a suit by Trump-allied attorney Lin Wood, which was dismissed in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Saturday. A separate lawsuit brought by the Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party is pending in Fulton County Superior Court.
State election officials have repeatedly disputed the many fraud claims spread by Trump, who held a rally in Valdosta on Saturday in which he called the election “rigged” and listed a series of allegations that so far have not been proven in court.
Raffensperger, a Republican whom Trump has called an “enemy of the people,” again on Monday said his office has found no evidence of widespread election fraud and urged the president and his allies to ease off their divisive language.
“Continuing to make debunked claims of a stolen election is hurting our state,” Raffensperger said at a news conference. “The president has his due-process rights and those are available to him. It’s time we all focus on the future and growth.”
Raffensperger’s office will soon have help from state investigators with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to help clear more than 250 open cases of specific fraud claims that have been lodged so far throughout this year. Officials have said those cases will likely not uncover any widespread fraud.
Kemp, like Raffensperger, has faced intense pressure from Trump and his allies to scrap the election results and order an audit of voter signatures made on envelopes for the roughly 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in the Nov. 3 election. Officials have said such an audit is unlikely without a court order.
The governor has joined Raffensperger in calling for legislation to bolster Georgia’s voter ID laws in the upcoming legislative session starting next month, while resisting demands he order a special session before then aimed at giving state lawmakers power to empanel Electoral College members.
“Any attempt by the legislature to retroactively change that process for the Nov. 3 election would be unconstitutional and immediately enjoined by the courts, resulting in a long legal dispute and no short-term resolution,” Kemp said in a joint statement with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan on Sunday.
Electoral College members from all 50 states and the District of Columbia are scheduled to formally cast votes for president and vice president on Dec. 14. The electors’ vote count will be finalized on Jan. 6.
Democrat Rev. Raphael Warnock (left) and Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (right) are campaigning to win a runoff election on Jan. 5, 2021. (Photos by Beau Evans)
U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her Democratic challenger, Rev. Raphael Warnock, squared off on stock trades, police support and election integrity in a debate Sunday night ahead of the Jan. 5 runoff election.
Hours earlier, Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff, who owns an investigative journalism company, debated by himself Sunday after incumbent U.S. Sen. David Perdue declined to participate, saying two debates with Ossoff before Nov. 3 election were enough.
Victories for both Warnock and Ossoff would give Democrats control of Congress and the White House following President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump last month – though Trump has refused to concede as he continues promoting claims of election fraud.
The importance of Georgia’s Senate runoffs for American government took center stage Sunday night, as Loeffler warned Democratic control of Washington, D.C., could spur radical policies while Warnock urged his opponent to stop entertaining Trump’s divisive actions.
While Ossoff stood alone for his Atlanta Press Club debate, Loeffler and Warnock took turns lobbing attacks at each other and playing defense in a race that has drawn hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for television ads, social-media outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts.
Loeffler, a wealthy Atlanta businesswoman, batted down allegations she profited from insider information on the risks of COVID-19 before the pandemic took hold in March to make controversial stock trades, saying federal investigators found no evidence of wrongdoing.
“I’ve been completely exonerated,” Loeffler said. “Those are lies perpetrated by the left-wing media and Democrats to distract from their radical agenda.”
Warnock, who is the senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, has been bashed in attack ads for his past comments criticizing bad-actor police officers whom he described as having a “thug mentality,” as well as his past support for the firebrand Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Following his campaign’s strategy, Warnock on Sunday dismissed attacks from Loeffler and her GOP allies as distractions aimed at stirring emotions in voters rather than engaging in policy discussions.
“It’s clear to me that my opponent is going to work really hard spending millions of dollars of her own money trying to push a narrative about me,” Warnock said. “She’s clearly decided that she does not have a case to be made for why she should stay in that seat.”
Warnock has largely focused his campaign on bolstering health care amid the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening the Affordable Care Act. He slammed legislation Loeffler has sponsored on health insurance, arguing it includes loopholes for insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
“She knows that junk health-care plan show rolled out has a loophole in it big enough to drive a Mack truck through,” Warnock said on Sunday. “She can’t explain that, and so she’s trying to misrepresent my record.”
Loeffler has previously dismissed criticism her health-care plan, insisting it would cover pre-existing conditions despite questions over legal loopholes.
On Sunday, she repeatedly called Warnock a “radical liberal” and criticized his stances on criminal justice reform, particularly for reducing prison populations.
“He doesn’t care about safety and security in any community,” Loeffler said. “I’m fighting to make sure we have the resources to keep our communities safe and our police departments well-funded and well-trained.”
Warnock has backed creating a federal body to probe officer use-of-force misconduct and opposed calls to defund police agencies, despite repeated claims from Loeffler to the contrary. He said Sunday that Loeffler was exaggerating his stances on criminal justice reform to suit her campaign’s attack strategy.
“The land of the free is the mass-incarceration capitol of the world,” Warnock said. “People on both sides of the aisle know our criminal justice system needs reform.”
Loeffler and Perdue are both threading the needle between supporting Trump’s quest to reverse his election loss and rallying Republican voters in Georgia who have lost faith in the state’s election system to turn out on Jan. 5.
Loeffler several times on Sunday declined to pick sides in the spat between Trump, whose steadfast supporters she is seeking to court, and Gov. Brian Kemp, who appointed Loeffler in January following former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson’s retirement due to health issues.
“My loyalties are with Georgia,” Loeffler said.
Amid Republican in-fighting, Warnock and Ossoff are angling to portray the two wealthy senators as out-of-touch with average Georgians as they push to keep up voter momentum following Biden’s win in Georgia, which was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since 1992.
Ossoff, facing an empty podium, spent much of his one-sided debate Sunday night highlighting Perdue’s absence. He called the Republican senator “arrogant” and accused him of benefiting from insider trading via controversial stock trades early in the COVID-19 pandemic – allegations Perdue has denied.
“Senator Perdue, I suppose, doesn’t feel that he can handle himself in debate or perhaps is concerned that he may incriminate himself in debate,” Ossoff said. “Both of which, in my opinion which are disqualifying for a U.S. Senator seeking reelection.”
Ossoff also reiterated many of his campaign stances including following strict advice from health experts to curb the pandemic’s spread, expanding emergency COVID-19 business loans with more safeguards against corporate abuse and investing in clean-energy jobs and technology.
Perdue, like Loeffler, has stressed federal investigators found no evidence he made illegal stock trades shortly after a closed-door briefing for senators on COVID-19 in January, which Perdue’s campaign says he did not attend. He has also dismissed news reports on alleged close ties with companies he regulates as a member of several Senate committees.
Perdue has sought to cast Ossoff as too extreme for conservatives, noting a Hong Kong media company’s past purchase of one of his films. His campaign panned Ossoff’s solo debate appearance on Sunday as “an epic failure” largely for giving few details on how he would boost COVID-19 relief.
“These are serious times and Jon Ossoff just showed how unserious – and unprepared – he really is,” said Ben Fry, Perdue’s campaign manager. “Georgians will reject Jon Ossoff once again next month.”
Early voting for the Senate runoff elections starts Dec. 14. The deadline for Georgia voters to register for the runoffs is Dec. 7.
This story has been updated to clarify Sen. Perdue’s campaign has stated he did not attend the closed-door briefing on COVID-19 in January.
Former President Barack Obama urges Georgians to vote blue in the U.S. Senate runoff elections at a virtual rally on Dec. 4, 2020. (Democratic Party of Georgia video)
Former President Barack Obama rallied online Friday to turn out the vote for Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates in the Jan. 5 runoff elections.
At the same time, Vice President Mike Pence stopped in Savannah to galvanize support for the state’s Republican senators amid divisive doubt among conservatives over the presidential election and lingering fraud claims.
Friday’s virtual rally was the first Georgia stop for Obama since the state swung its votes to President-elect Joe Biden, who is poised to be the first Democratic candidate to win Georgia since 1992. A second recount completed on Friday showed Biden carried the state over President Donald Trump by 11,773 votes.
The former president highlighted Georgia’s importance for the upcoming Biden administration’s effectiveness, as victories for both Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock would give Democrats control of Congress and the White House.
“The problem with doing such a good job is folks come back and ask you to do so more,” Obama said.
“You are once again the center of our civic universe because the [runoff] election in Georgia is going to determine, ultimately, the course of the Biden presidency and whether Joe Biden and [Vice President-elect] Kamala Harris can deliver legislatively all the commitments they’ve made.”
Pence made similar pleas to batten down the GOP hatches in Savannah, where he rallied conservatives to resist growing calls to skip out on voting for Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler as fraud claims stemming from the Nov. 3 election continue sowing distrust.
The vice president’s visit came days after a Trump-allied attorney suing to overturn Georgia’s election results urged hundreds of conservatives in metro Atlanta to boycott the runoffs unless state election officials order an audit of absentee-ballot signatures, which they are unlikely to do.
“I know we’ve all got our doubts about the last election,” Pence said Friday. “And I actually hear some people say, ‘Just don’t vote.’”
“My fellow Americans, if you don’t vote, they win. … For all we’ve done, for all we have yet to do, for our president and our future, for Georgia and America, cast another vote for all that President Trump has accomplished.”
Trump is scheduled to hold a rally Saturday in Valdosta where he is expected to amplify claims of Georgia election fraud that his personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, aired Thursday before a panel of mostly Republican state lawmakers.
Many Georgia Republicans are hoping to cut through the fraud noise by positioning Perdue and Loeffler as the last bulwark against a Democrat-dominated Washington, D.C. Their strategy has been to paint Ossoff and Warnock as too far left on the political spectrum for the state’s large conservative voting bloc.
“What they’re talking about is so far left that we may never get it back again if we lose this race right now,” Perdue said at Friday’s rally in Savannah. “We’re going to win Georgia and we’re going to save America, right?”
Democratic leaders are banking on momentum from flipping Georgia in the presidential election to carry voters back to the polls next month for the January runoffs. They have homed in on controversial stock trades by Perdue and Loeffler as evidence the wealthy senators are out of touch with average Georgians.
“We’re running against like the Bonnie and Clyde of political corruption in America who represent politicians who put themselves over people,” Ossoff said Friday. “Let’s make history and win these races and write the next chapter in American history together.”
Early voting for the Senate runoff elections starts Dec. 14. The deadline for Georgia voters to register for the runoffs is Dec. 7.
Rudolph Giuliani urges Georgia Senate members to pick the state’s Electoral College electors at a hearing on Dec. 3, 2020. (Georgia Senate video)
Georgia lawmakers aired claims of 2020 election fraud Thursday afternoon at a hearing that featured President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani.
The former New York City mayor’s appearance came after state senators fielded testimony at a separate hearing Thursday morning from a top state election official who stressed no evidence has been found of widespread fraud in Georgia.
At the second hearing, members of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee heard from witnesses on alleged issues with the state’s voting machines and watched a video alleging ballot-counting irregularities that state election officials have dismissed as unfounded.
That evidence is expected to be included in a lawsuit Giuliani and his legal team said they plan to file in Fulton County Superior Court.
Giuliani’s team also pressed state lawmakers to appoint electors to the Electoral College who will cast Georgia’s 16 votes in Trump’s favor next month – despite the secretary of state’s website showing the Republican president lost to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia by at least 10,422 votes, with around 3,000 votes left to be recounted Thursday night.
“This is your power, your obligation,” Giuliani said. “You are the final arbiter of who the electors should be and whether the election is fair or not.”
At the earlier hearing before the Senate Government Oversight Committee, the general counsel for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office, Ryan Germany, reiterated state officials “have not seen anything that would suggest widespread fraud or widespread problems with the voting system” after two recounts of the 5 million ballots cast in Georgia’s presidential election.
Germany and the state’s voting system manager, Gabriel Sterling, were present to answer questions but were not invited to the afternoon hearing in which Giuliani and his witnesses aired their claims.
Republican state senators convened the two committee hearings to address allegations of voting fraud and irregularities circulated by Trump and his supporters, who have flooded lawmakers in Georgia’s more conservative regions with complaints and angry reaction to the election.
Giuliani, who has floated fraud claims and conspiracies in other battleground states including Michigan and Pennsylvania, brought witnesses alleging Georgia’s voting machines potentially switched thousands of votes in favor of Biden. They have called for a forensic audit of both the machines and signatures on absentee-ballot envelopes.
One witness, who also provided an affidavit in a separate lawsuit filed by Trump ally Sidney Powell, presented statistical modeling purporting to show Biden received more votes than he should have. That witness’ affidavit claims the voting machines were “compromised by rogue actors” in Venezuela, China and Iran and feature software that “can be easily obtained on the dark web.”
Giuliani’s attorneys also unveiled surveillance video they alleged shows ballot-counting irregularities at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, though they acknowledged they obtained the video late Wednesday night and had not finished reviewing it yet – nor shown it to anyone else prior to Thursday’s hearing.
Other witnesses discussed issues with election workers handling paper print-out and absentee ballots during the initial counts and recounts, including one witness who said ballots were kept in “cardboard boxes” and kept “less secure than a urine sample.”
During the earlier hearing, Germany of Raffensperger’s office noted a third-party group did perform an audit of a “cross section” of the voting machines last month after the Nov. 3 election, which found “the machines were working exactly properly.”
He also described to lawmakers how signatures on absentee ballots are verified once when a voter requests a ballot, then again on signature-bearing envelopes sent to county election boards. Those envelopes are separated from the absentee ballots to protect voters’ ballot selections and preserve voter privacy, according to state law.
Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez, Fulton County’s external affairs director, said county officials followed all the rules and procedures for verifying and counting absentee ballots that have been set by state law and Raffensperger’s office.
“It is our intent to follow the law, to follow the process that is provided by the secretary of state,” Corbitt-Dominguez told lawmakers Thursday. “And to our knowledge, that is what happened.”
Democratic lawmakers at the hearings called them a farce, noting claims from Giuliani’s witnesses faced no scrutiny from election officials and that Republican lawmakers in the GOP-dominated General Assembly had the heaviest hand in selecting Georgia’s new voting machines last year.
“[Raffensperger’s] office just explained to senators and the public how the election was run and that Biden won,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta. “Now we are being forced to listen to bonkers conspiracy theories out of Rudy Giuliani’s team. What a disservice to the public!”
Republican lawmakers took the claims from Giuliani’s witnesses more seriously. Senate Majority Whip Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, said he has “never seen this level of mistrust” in the election system after fielding concerns from constituents in his heavily conservative North Georgia district.
“Maybe that’s not totally fair … [but] that’s how they feel,” Gooch said Thursday. “I have a duty to let you know that. This issue isn’t going to go away unless we make some changes.”
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s election system implementation manager, gives an update on the presidential election recount on Nov. 18, 2020. (Secretary of State video)
Georgia’s top election manager ripped into President Donald Trump Tuesday, as well as U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, for not doing more to tamp down unfounded claims of voting fraud after a local election worker was threatened with a noose.
Gabriel Sterling, the state’s election implementation manager, called on the Republican president and Georgia’s GOP senators to “step up” after Trump supporters took video of a 20-year-old election-system contractor, threatened him with a noose on Twitter and tracked down home addresses for members of his family.
“I can’t begin to explain the level of anger that I have right now over this,” Sterling, who is a Republican, said of the recent threat. “And every American, every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike, should have that same level of anger.”
Sterling also denounced threats that have been made against his supervisor, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, including “sexualized threats” sent to Raffensperger’s wife’s cell phone.
“This is our elections,” Sterling said. “This is the backbone of our democracy. And all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It’s too much.”
Raffensperger and his family have been threatened several times recently including when someone broke into a home owned by a family member, his office said. Caravans of Trump supporters waving flags from pickup trucks have also been cruising around and honking horns in Raffensperger’s neighborhood.
On Monday, Raffensperger said certain people are misleading Trump and his supporters with “fantastic claims” of election fraud aimed at “exploiting [their] emotions.”
A top deputy in Raffensperger’s office, Sterling has held multiple news conferences in recent weeks as state and county election officials worked through two separate recounts of the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. The second recount is on track to wrap up by midnight Wednesday.
Certified election results show Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia by 12,670 votes, a margin that narrowed by around 1,500 votes after uncounted ballots were located during the state’s first recount. That margin is not likely to shrink enough to reverse the final outcome, Sterling has said.
That has not stopped Trump from taking to Twitter repeatedly in recent days to slam Raffensperger and pressure Gov. Brian Kemp to intervene in the president’s favor. Attorneys allied with Trump have filed federal lawsuits seeking to de-certify the election that contain claims echoing many of his mail-in ballot and voting-machine fraud allegations.
In an impassioned plea, Sterling on Tuesday urged Trump to back off the divisive language he’s used to spread doubt about the election results while the second recount continues and lawsuits wind through court, adding: “Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia.”
“Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence,” Sterling said. “Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed. And it’s not right.”
Sterling also lashed out at Perdue and Loeffler, both staunch Trump supporters who called for Raffensperger’s resignation last month and have refused to back off that position. Their push for Raffensperger to resign prompted Trump to describe Georgia’s secretary of state as “an enemy of the people.”
On Tuesday, Sterling said those actions by the Trump, Loeffler and Perdue worked to incite violence and helped open a “floodgate of crap” related to fraud conspiracies and threats.
“We need you to step up,” Sterling said, singling out Perdue and Loeffler by name. “And if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some. It has to stop.”
Campaign spokespersons for Loeffler and Perdue said both senators condemn violence but added they also would continue pushing for “accountability” of Georgia’s election system.
“Like many officials, as someone who has been the subject of threats, of course Senator Loeffler condemns violence of any kind. How ridiculous to even suggest otherwise,” said Loeffler campaign spokesman Stephen Lawson.
“We also condemn inaction and lack of accountability in our election system process – and won’t apologize for calling it out.”
Perdue and Loeffler are competing against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock in runoff elections set for Jan. 5.
Top Republican state lawmakers announced Tuesday they plan to hold hearings later this week on the integrity of Georgia’s election system and to take testimony on alleged “elections improprieties” stemming from the 2020 general election.
Back-to-back hearings have been scheduled for Thursday by the Senate Government Oversight Committee to “evaluate the election process” and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to field election-impropriety claims.
The two meetings come as officials in Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office continue to dismiss claims of widespread voter fraud by allies of President Donald Trump, who certified results show lost the Nov. 3 presidential election to President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia by 12,670 votes.
In particular, Trump’s allies have homed in on how Georgia verifies signatures on the roughly 1.3 million mail-in ballots cast in the presidential election and have urged Raffensperger’s office to launch an audit aimed at matching those signatures with registration information.
Raffensperger’s office has signaled it is unlikely to do so without a court order, though the secretary of state has called for the General Assembly to pass legislation that would toughen up Georgia’s voter ID laws. A handful of federal lawsuits challenging the election’s certification are still winding through the courts.
Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, have also called for passing tighter voter ID rules during the legislative session that starts next month.
State election officials have highlighted claims of individual voting fraud or irregularities as part of more than 250 ongoing investigations as well as management stumbles from a few local election boards like Fulton County. Raffensperger’s office has also launched investigations into groups allegedly attempting to register out-of-state voters ahead of the U.S. Senate runoff elections on Jan. 5.
None of those issues are likely to overturn the ultimate outcome of the presidential election, state officials have said. Raffensperger’s office expects a second recount of the more-than 5 million ballots cast in the presidential election to wrap up by midnight Wednesday.
The state Senate meetings were announced jointly by the chamber’s majority caucus leaders including President Pro Tempore Butch Miller, R-Gainesville; Majority Leader Mike Dugan, R-Carrollton; Majority Whip Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega; Majority Caucus Chairman John Kennedy, R-Macon; Majority Caucus Vice Chairman Larry Walker III, R-Perry; and Majority Caucus Secretary Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge.
