Donald Trump criticized the Georgia vote recount, saying that the signature was not verified renders the process “meaningless.”
The Trump campaign and the Republicans in Georgia clashed with Secretary of State Brad Ravensberger and Governor Brian Kemp – both Republicans – for mismanaging the alleged electoral process.
“The consent decree signed by the Georgia Foreign Minister, with the consent of Governor BrianKempGA, at the urging of the staceyabrams, makes it impossible to verify and match the signatures on ballot papers, envelopes, etc.,” the president tweeted on Saturday.
“They knew they were going to cheat. True signatures should be exposed!”
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He continued the sermon on Monday.
“The fake recount going on in Georgia means nothing because they don’t let signatures be looked at and verified. Break the unconstitutional consent decree!” He wrote.
Mr. Trump later added, “Georgia won’t let us look at the all-important signature match. Without that recount is meaningless. Open the unconstitutional consent decree now! BrianKempGA”
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This came just as Ravensburger was straining off his party in an extraordinary interview Washington Post.
He claimed that he had come under increasing pressure from fellow Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, to question the validity of the vote legally.
Mr. Ravensberger told the newspaper that the atmosphere had become so controversial that he and his wife received death threats, including a text message saying, “It is better not to spoil this recount. Your life depends on it.”
The “consent decree” that Mr. Trump continues to refer to was a legal settlement signed on March 6, ending a lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party after Stacy Abrams lost the governor’s race to Kemp in 2018 – and refused to waive, claiming the election was stolen. Of which.
Democrats argued that minorities were disproportionately affected when absentee ballots were rejected due to a mismatch of signatures.
The agreement outlined new processes for local election officials to follow, among other things requiring them – rather than rejecting the vote entirely – to notify the voter in a timely manner about signature problems so that they can be “remedied”.
Prominent Republican attorney Ellen Wood reappeared in the case in a federal lawsuit on Friday, asking whether the Secretary of State has the authority to implement the verification process for the new signature.
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Ravensberger categorically denied Mr Trump’s claim that the consent decree made it impossible to match signatures, saying it was possible and required by the state, the Associated Press indicated in the fact-checking report.
The Associated Press said: “There is nothing in the approval decree that prevents the clerks of Georgia’s elections from checking the signatures.”
“The legal settlement signed in March addresses accusations that there are no statewide standards for judging signatures on absentee ballot envelopes.”
Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollack noted, however, that the case was more subtle.
He pointed out that the approval decree made “it very difficult to reject a ballot paper with a signature that does not match the voter’s file.”
Under the consent decree, if an election worker believes the signature does not match, he must “seek review” from two other officials, and at least two of the three must agree.
The three officials must then write their names on the face of the absentee ballot envelope and indicate the reason for the rejection.
“This greatly reduces the chance of rejection,” Pollack said.
“ The specific Trump tweet the AP examined was claiming Georgia had made it ‘impossible’ to verify signatures. It is not impossible in theory but very impractical. The decree makes verification of signatures * practically * impossible. Trump is closer to the truth than so-called fact-checkers. “
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Trump’s tweets on Monday further confused the case.
While he continued to object to the consent decree, he appeared to confuse it with state Republican complaints about observers’ limits for the recount.
Under rules announced last week by Ravensberger’s office, state parties are permitted one auditor for every 10 audit teams.
“This makes it impossible to review hand count decisions in real time,” Georgia Republican President David Schaeffer wrote in a letter to Mr. Ravensberger on Thursday. “One particular device cannot monitor 10 schedules simultaneously.”
Mr. Schaeffer said that during the initial count, Republican ballot observers were “aggressively” prevented from “actively monitoring the tabulation process” in some areas.
He said, “We are concerned that your directive today has repeated these problems and exacerbated them.”
Schaeffer added that an analysis of publicly available data showed that the percentage of absentee ballots rejected in Georgia “decreased” from 3.5 percent in 2018 to 0.3 percent in 2020.
“This raises serious concerns about whether the provinces have conducted a valid signature verification and / or other verification of absentee ballots,” he said. “In fact, it brings up the issue of whether some provinces have conducted any audits at all.”
The Trump campaign and Republicans in other states have made similar observations about low mailed ballot rejection rates, which typically range between 2 and 3 percent.
Georgia, which Joe Biden narrowly won with more votes counted by mail after Election Day, announced last week “an audit, recount and refund simultaneously” due to a very slim margin of less than 0.3 per cent.
All 159 Georgia counties – the second-largest of any state except Texas – were ordered to complete recounts in time for the certification deadline on Friday, Nov.20.
At the time the recount was announced, 97 boycotts had submitted the final results, and Biden was ahead of Trump by 14,111 votes from fewer than 4.93 million in the state.
Over the weekend, poll workers in Floyd County discovered more than 2,500 votes had been lost due to a faulty scanner. Rome News Tribune mentioned.
The discovery added 1,643 votes for Trump, 865 votes for Biden, and 16 for Libertarian Joe Jorgensen – a net gain of 778 for the president.
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