ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s secretary of state is an islander, and political flooding is accelerating as President Donald Trump and his allies lash out at fellow Republicans over unsubstantiated claims that the state’s presidential election was marred by mismanagement and fraud. . .
Trump spent the weekend attacking Brad Rafenspર્rger on social media, at one point calling him a “so-called Republican” (RINO), a “Republican in name only.” Withdrawing, Fensperger disputed Trump’s claim that he had made it easier for Democrats to use the mail-in ballot to defraud. Secretary of State Rap also called Doug Collins, who is running Trump’s Georgia recount efforts, a “lie.” On Monday, Rafansperger told the Washington Post that he believes the South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham is wrongly pressuring him to cancel the vote. Graham called the allegations “ridiculous.”
The current battle is the switch for Rafensperger. -Old-year-old, bespoke engineer spent most of his two years in office abusing Democrats, who claimed that Georgia, under then-Secretary of State Brian Camp, engaged in illegal voter repression in 2018. The Republican candidate who won the governorship over Democrat Stacey Abrams that year denies the allegations.
The timeline for 2020 was a sabotage race to replace Georgia’s old voting machines – which was complicated by the drag on the coronavirus epidemic.
Through all of this, Ruff Fensperger – who is currently in quarantine after his wife tested positive for Covid-19 – has insisted he is an impartial administrator of the Georgia election without a desire or agenda to curb the outcome.
Trump and his allies have claimed that Raffensperger did not do enough to root out “illegal” votes.
“The Secretary of State has failed to hold honest and transparent elections,” the G.O.P. Sense. David Perdue and Kelly Loffler – both of whom failed to win enough votes to avoid running with their Democratic opponents in January – said in a statement last week, without offering any evidence to back up their claims. “He has failed the people of Georgia, and he should resign immediately.”
Collins fired back on Twitter on Monday in response to Rafansperger’s “lies” label: “In a year of political divisions in Georgia, some things have united the United Republicans and Democrats – one of them being Brad Raffensperger’s disqualification as Secretary of State.”
Rafansperger has sought to appease Trump supporters by airing the blow. After the Trump campaign asked for a hand count of all 5 million votes cast in Georgia, Affans Fansperg chose the presidential election for an audit date, which Georgia law now requires a statewide race in every election cycle. He also insisted that all votes – not just sample ballots, should be repeated as per the norm for audit – and that the vote would be conducted by hand.
Without getting bored with the fact that he is a Republican, Rafenesperg has publicly stated that he wants Trump to win. But he also said he saw no evidence of widespread fraud or vote irregularities – and insisted he expected Biden to take a 14,000-vote lead once the audit was completed.
“We know it was a silly argument,” Raffensperg said in an interview with WDU-AM Radio on Monday about the allegations of fraud. “But the hand count puts it in bed.”
The election president is largely left to fight on his own terms.
Eight GOPs in the state U.S. Members of the House have demanded – again without citing any evidence – that the Secretary of State would investigate Trump’s claims. Lieutenant Gov. Geoff Duncan and State House Speaker David Ralston are the exceptions: they have joined the camp in advancing the investigation, but have briefly stopped attacking Rafensperger.
Some Republicans also publicly supported him.
“From the point of view of what I saw, there was no widespread fraud in the general election process,” said the Senate Republican Saxby Chamblis, who served two terms in the U.S. Senate.
Georgia has seen years of controversy over voting that makes up for the loss of Abrams. Republicans have labeled Rafenspર્rger as a new enemy, while some Democrats have partially ridiculed themselves.
“I think he made the whole decision to change the way the election is run to accommodate this epidemic,” said David Worley, a former chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party, who now serves on the state election board. Worley said Rance Fensperger had been a better manager and had less partisanship as secretary of state than Camp.
Prior to winning statewide office fees, Affleck got a fortune in fencing engineering and won the 2011 City Council election in the affluent Atlanta suburb of Jones Creek.
“There is no hidden agenda here,” said Evan Figuero, who serves on the council with Rafansperger. “He speaks his mind directly. You can trust what he says. ”
In 2014, Rafansperger won the state assembly election. In 2018, when Kempe chose to run for governor, Ruff Fencesperger joined the Democratic U.S. Rep. Defeating John Barrow, ran successfully in his place.
Last December, Raffinsperger still outraged Democrats by purging more than 300,000 voters under Georgia’s law, removing them from the rolls if they did not vote or respond to contacts within seven years. The new law will extend the deadline to nine years.
Rafansperger’s biggest task is to roll out a new voting system purchased from Dominion Voting Systems with 100 million touchscreens. Dominion is the target of unsupported conspiracy claims spread by Trump and his supporters in recent days.
The new equipment received a rocky rollout during the June primary that was blamed for the long wait, in part because the COVID-19 epidemic had shrunk polling stations and the number of workers.
The November vote was simple, with most people voting before election day, followed by a system online configuration for mail-in ballot requests by affiliate fans.
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