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US President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s top election official to “find” enough votes to reverse his defeat in the southern state, according to a recording of the hour-long call released by US media on Sunday.
Saturday’s call was the latest move in Trump’s two-month effort to insist that his loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election was the result of widespread electoral fraud, a claim widely rejected by state and federal election officials and multiple courts. .
Trump’s call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, came as some of Trump’s allies in the U.S. Congress plan to oppose formal certification of Biden’s victory on Wednesday. The former vice president won by a margin of 306-232 in the Electoral College state by state, and by more than 7 million votes in total.
During the call, released by the Washington PosTrump repeatedly pressures Raffensperger to declare that he won more votes than Biden.
“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump says, according to the audio of the call.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated.”
The state conducted three separate vote counts, resulting in two official certifications of Biden’s victory. The final results show that Biden won 11,779 more votes than Trump out of nearly 5 million cast.
Raffensperger and his office general counsel rejected Trump’s claims and told the president that he relied on debunked conspiracy theories spread on social media about what a fair and accurate election was.
“Mr. President, the challenge you have is that the data that you have is incorrect,” Raffensperger said.
The White House declined to comment. Raffensperger’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Biden, said the recording captured “the whole shameful story about Donald Trump’s attack on American democracy.”
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