Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced this week that his office has opened investigations into more than 250 claims of vote fraud related to the 2020 election.
Raffensperger has dismissed claims from President Donald Trump’s campaign that Georgia’s election was rife with foul play, but he did admit that there are hundreds of credible cases investigators are looking into.
“As we move forward in the process, we will, as we always have been, we will continue to investigate credible claims of illegal voting and violation of state election law,” he said during a press briefing on Monday.
“There are currently over 250 open cases from 2020, and we have 23 investigators to follow up on that,” he said.
Among the cases being scrutinized was one in Gwinnett County, just northeast of Atlanta, where absentee ballots allegedly outnumbered absentee envelopes.
“This is the kind of specific charge that our office can investigate and ascertain the truth,” Raffensperger said.
The Republican official acknowledged the importance of making sure Georgia’s election process is safe, especially since two critical Senate run-off elections are set to place in only a couple of months.
“We have multiple investigations underway surrounding absentee ballots in Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, and many others,” he said.
“We continue our investigations into potential dead-, double-voters, and non-resident voters,” he added. “As we move to the … Jan. 5 federal runoffs, we have to remain vigilant.”
However, Raffensperger denounced the “dishonest actors” who have been spreading “massive amounts of misinformation” about Georgia’s election.
He appeared to make an indirect reference to Trump’s legal team, claiming that, “There are those who are exploiting the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half truths, misinformation, and frankly, they are misleading the president as well.”
Trump has slammed Raffensperger for not taking his campaign’s legal challenge seriously, and has demanded that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, step in.
Do something @BrianKempGA. You allowed your state to be scammed. We must check signatures and count signed envelopes against ballots. Then call off election. It won’t be needed. We will all WIN! https://t.co/UiJrlyBGiK
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2020
