GA's secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude ballots [View all]
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Philip Rucker
@PhilipRucker
Georgias secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots, @AmyEGardner reports
Georgias secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude...
In a wide-ranging interview, Brad Raffensperger expressed exasperation for a string of baseless accusations by President Trump and his allies about Georgias vote.
washingtonpost.com
3:26 PM · Nov 16, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brad-raffensperger-georgia-vote/2020/11/16/6b6cb2f4-283e-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trumps narrow loss in the state.
In a wide-ranging interview about the 2020 election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation with a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgias voting machines, is a leftist company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes not to be counted.
The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that both he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read, You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.
Other than getting you angry, its also very disillusioning, Raffensperger said of the threats, particularly when it comes from people on my side of the aisle. Everyone that is working on this needs to elevate their speech. We need to be thoughtful and careful about what we say. He said he reported the threats to state authorities.
The pressure on Raffensperger, who has bucked his party in defending the states voting process, comes as Georgia is in the midst of a laborious hand recount of roughly 5 million ballots. President-elect Joe Biden has a 14,000-vote lead in the initial count.
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