Fact Checking More Claims About the 2020 Presidential Election in Georgia

Former President Donald Trump continues to make false statements.

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Last Thursday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis requested a special grand jury to assist with an investigation into Donald Trump’s possible interference in the 2020 presidential election. Earlier this month, Willis told the Associated Press that the investigation would include Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from January 2, 2021. 

During the phone call, which we fact checked, Trump asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the election results in Georgia, which Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes. As we noted, the Washington Post released a recording of the phone call in which Trump recycled familiar, baseless claims of voter fraud.

In response to Willis’ request for a special grand jury, Trump released a statement defending his call with Raffensperger, describing it as “perfect.”

He claims that he “didn’t say anything wrong in the call” and that he made it  to “look into the massive voter fraud fraud which took place in Georgia.” As we explained, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Georgia, and Trump repeatedly brought up instances of “fraud” without evidence. 

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  1. Pingback: earn passive income
  • Avatar photo
    Pat Riot

    And the crazy thing is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with ballot harvesting. It's just volunteers helping people vote. We need more of this in the USA, not less.

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      Blake

      I disagree. Putting a 3rd party that isn’t traceable (in OK, at least, when I use USPS to mail a ballot, I can check it’s status and if it doesn’t show up by Election Day, I can fill out a ballot at a polling place). But some political volunteer could manipulate votes, and it just adds distrust. I’m all for restoring people’s faith in elections, and ballot harvesting has a sordid enough history I think it’s worth keeping illegal. Also, what is so hard about mail-in/absentee voting?

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      1. Mid R.

        I’m ok with ballot collections as long as there are guardrails around it (like who, where, etc). I don’t like the idea of unfettered collections where tampering or sifting could occur. The most notorious case that comes to mind happened in NC in 2018 when a Republican candidate for the House had an operative collecting and tampering with ballots.

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          Pat Riot

          That wasn't ballot harvesting though, that was run-of-the-mill election fraud.

          It's worth noting that no proposed Republican laws deal with *that* issue because doing so wouldn't give Republicans any election advantage.

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          1. Mid R.

            It was fraud that included ballot harvesting and that’s why there need to be guardrails.

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        Pat Riot

        Sure, and any citizen can rob a bank. It just doesn't happen.

        People who have been lied to by Donald Trump about the 2020 election cannot and should not be our basis of election laws. Those people will not believe *anything* unless Trump says so. Hence saying we should pander to them is a never-ending task since no matter what you do they will just say that's "fraud". There's no point in enabling people who have been lied to: the nicest thing you can do to them is **tell them the truth**.

        There's nothing hard about mail-in voting, just like there's nothing hard about driving 40 miles to a polling location and waiting in line for three hours so you can vote. It's just that if you make this a requirement, fewer people fill vote. Republicans believe if you make voting as big a pain in the ass as possible, then it will benefit them in the election. Hence these laws for which they use Trump's lies as an excuse.


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          Blake

          Your analogy about bank robbery makes MY point, not yours. You're right, bank robbery isn't a huge problem but that doesn't mean we should just make bank robbery legal. There were already laws preventing ballot harvesting on the books in most states specifying who is allowed to return ballots (in many states it has to be a family member or care giver, which seems completely reasonable and fraud-proof). Many states don't allow people like union agents, employers, employees of campaigns, etc, which also seems to be for the sake of reducing the perception of potential fraud. That also seems completely legitimate to me. Trump's an idiot, and so is anyone who believes the election was stolen, but I'm 100% for reasonable laws that prevent even the appearance of potential fraud so we can all have faith in our elections.

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            Pat Riot

            Millions and millions of people walk into banks every day and virtually none of them rob it. Disallowing people from entering banks is not the answer, which is what you are proposing.

            California and other states have had ballot harvesting for *years* with no problems whatsoever even though a rabid Republican Media Complex is scouring the Earth there for so much as one fraudulent vote so they can make their point. They've found *nothing*.

            What you are proposing is the equivalent of asking for your ID and credit card *before* you walk into a Denny's so they can prevent the crime of dine-and-dash. It would technically "reduce fraud" because it probably happens in the USA a few times a year. It would also make going to eat out a massive pain in the ass for everyone for *absolutely no reason*.

            And to continue to the analogy, the GOP here is the lobby organization representing food delivery apps that would *benefit* from consumers experiencing a needless traffic jam every time they went out to eat: the GOP puts these laws on the books for exactly *one* reason, which is to give themselves a marginal advantage in the election by making it so fewer of their opponent's voters want to vote.

            The entire GOP argument around voting and elections is in bad faith, based on a lie. Compromising with this lie is to *proliferate* Republican lies about voter fraud, and with 70% of Republicans believing that the 2020 election was stolen, this absolutely *is* a clear and present existential threat to our constitutional order.

            Microscopic meaningless bits voter fraud aren't a threat to our country. People falsely believing our election system is compromised absolutely *is*.



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    Ben Connelly

    “ Former President Donald Trump continues to make false statements.”

    Glad to know all is still right in the universe.

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    Bill Nelson

    This could be a full time staff position.

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    Nick H

    Trump makes false statements. In other news, water is wet and granite is hard.

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    BrettH

    Trump is still lying about the election!? Who would've thought....thanks Khaya!

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    Kevin C. Smith

    Excellent (as usual). You guys should put all the 2020 "Big Lie" fact checks in one location. I'd love to be able to share that page with folks and say: "Go here for a comprehensive collection of fact checks about election fraud claims."

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      Bill Nelson

      This collection has been provided by multiple sources. It is several terabytes.

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