Trump Election Fraud Claims 'Ridiculous': GA Election Officials

ATLANTA, GA — A top election official urged Georgians of every political persuasion and party to vote in Tuesday's Georgia Senate runoff election. And he labeled President Donald Trump’s continued assertions of vote fraud and election count tampering as being "ridiculous" and a threat to voters exercising their rights.

Trump on Saturday pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes in the state to overturn his November election defeat against Joe Biden. During the call, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by the Washington Post, Trump pivoted from berating Raffensperger to flattering him to threatening him with legal action should he refuse to pursue Trump’s demands.

“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” Trump said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”

Gabriel Sterling, the voting systems administrator for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, held a nationally televised news conference Monday to categorically deny any problems with the state’s voting process in November.

“The secretary of state wants me to make clear that everybody’s vote is going to count, everybody's vote did count,” Sterling said Monday. “We are specifically asking you and telling you, please turn out and vote tomorrow.”

People have told him the presidential election was stolen, and Sterling reiterated it wasn’t. But any Georgian who believes there were flaws should turn out to vote Tuesday and make it harder to steal the election, Sterling said.

“I’m not acknowledging that the election was stolen, because it wasn’t; I’m not acknowledging that there was massive voter fraud, because there wasn’t,” Sterling said. “But if you believe in your heart of hearts that there was [voter fraud], the best thing for you to do is turn out and vote and make it harder for them to steal. … There are people who fought and died and marched and prayed and voted to get the right to vote.”

Sterling, a Republican, and Raffensperger, also a Republican, have both received death threats and been castigated by online conspiracy theories since Biden won the Peach State by about 11,000 votes. While rural Georgia is solidly red, Atlanta's suburbs have become Democratic-leaning in the past four years.

On CBS Monday evening, Raffensperger said, "I can say with confidence the president did not win the state of Georgia. ... I'm not making a decision, I'm following the law and following the facts."

When asked by anchor Nora O'Donnell what he felt Trump intended by the controversial weekend call, Raffensperger said it was to change the results of the election.

But the secretary said he didn't feel coerced by the president. “I didn’t feel intimidated, I can stand on my own two feet.”

The close race triggered an audit and a hand recount to ensure all ballots were accurately recorded. Sterling said that agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation shadowed election officials as they reviewed voting machine operations and ballots. Out of the votes cast statewide, he said only two were done in error, and one of those checks led to the voter for verification.

Trump's repeated claims that the election was stolen stem in part from video surveillance from State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which served as a polling location in the November 2020 election. He claimed it revealed fraudulent activity by election workers, costing him thousands of votes.

The footage shows election workers pulling a container with ballots out from under a table after returning to their counting areas. Sterling, who has commented on this specific incident before, said the video shows normal ballot processing.

Raffensperger's office also posted the video surveillance footage on its voting website, securevotega.com, for the public to view.

"The president's legal team had the entire tape. They watched the entire tape, and then from our point of view, intentionally misled the Senate, voters and the people of the United States about this," Sterling said. "It was intentional, it was obvious and anybody watching this [national news conference] knows that."

Everybody who cares about the future of this nation should turn out and vote Tuesday, Sterling said.

"This is all easily, provably false and yet the president persists" in repeating rumors of tampering with machines, stacks of ballots being hidden or destroyed and other problems, Sterling said. "There’s no shredding of ballots going on, that’s not happening, it’s not real."

Sterling said he found it interesting that his office wasn’t called to speak at a state legislative oversight hearing where conspiracy theories were aired.

The state of Georgia’s electors will be seated on Wednesday, he said, and that will prove the process was followed correctly.