Fact Checking Trump’s Claims From His Call With Brad Raffensperger

The president made numerous false claims about election fraud.

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In a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday, President Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the results of the election in Georgia, which Joe Biden won by 11,779 votes. The Washington Postreleased a recording of the hourlong call, during which Trump peddled numerous false claims about the election, alleging several instances of voter fraud without evidence. 

At the start of the call, Trump claims that “it’s pretty clear that we won. We won very substantially in Georgia.” This is false. On December 7, Georgia election officials recertified the election results, showing Biden as the winner, after completing a recount at Trump’s request. Trump requested a recount after results showed that Biden won by 12,670 votes, per the Associated Press. Raffensperger had previously ordered an audit of the presidential election, during which 5 million votes were counted by hand. After the Trump-requested recount, Biden lost 776 votes but still won the state.

During a December 7 press conference to announce the recertification, Raffensperger said there was no evidence of voter fraud. “Continuing to make debunked claims of a stolen election is hurting our state,” he said. He also said that “[T]here are people that are convinced the election was fraught with problems, but the evidence, the actual evidence, the facts tell us a different story.”

Trump also repeated a false claim about a video showing “a major water break” that caused “everyone” to flee the area, including law enforcement and Republican poll watchers. Trump cites that video in explaining why he believes “18,000 ballots, all for Biden,” appeared, which, he says, “weren’t in an official voter box, but they were in what looked to be suitcases or trunks, suitcases but they weren’t in voter boxes.” Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript: 

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  1. Avatar photo
    rlritt

    I appreciate your detailed explanation of the steps election officials took to make sure the election was correct and accurate.. But, it is tiresome that this explanation has to be done over and over again.

    These people, including Trump and Hawley, who continue to hold on to the bogus belief that the election was stolen are idiots.

    Trump can't believe that he didn't win because he is a spoiled brat who can except the fact that the majority of voters hate him.

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      Narwhal

      Trump may be an idiot of sorts, though it is really more just ignorance and contempt for norms. Hawley is no idiot and I doubt he believes any of it, he is simply choosing ambition over principle as Sen. Romney pointed out.

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    Bill B

    Sterling on hearing the Trump/Raffensberger call:

    “When I listened to the audio of [Trump's] phone call…I wanted to scream…well I did scream at the computer, and I screamed in my car, at the radio…because this has been debunked.”

    Must be TDS.

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      Mudskipper

      Yeah, poor guy. He has it bad.

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        Bill B

        At least he has company.

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    Earl King

    Democrats outmaneuvered Republicans in changing rules in various states, that much is clear. What is also clear is that signature scanning machines can have very sensitive settings and setting that are very lenient. I have contended that even small cases of fraud...Dead People voting, non residents voting, illegal immigrants being allowed to vote due to mass mailings of ballots have the potential for fraud.
    That practices of ballot harvesting now lead to fears of vote tampering. Trump lost, that much is clear but there is the feeling that anomalies occurred and in some states, liberals changed the rules to favor them. These are state matters and much like Gerrymandering did occur. What is legal manipulation and what is shady manipulation simply left many feeling like something happened. The remedy is a more uniform transparent voting system...One that leaves both parties confident in America voter have one vote, untampered with and that only legal citizens can vote.
    When Democrats, don't want to match signatures, lower the voting age to 16, add DC as a State...never wash voter roles it simple leaves one to feel they want to game the system as they perceive these things get them more votes. This is why we have the issues with millions feeling as if some votes were illegal. It may not be rational, it may be fed by a sore loser....This nonsense that a protest of the EC is unusual is also factually wrong. I believe Democrats have protested ever EC...I think the Black Caucus did it en mass in the past decade. No, perhaps not in the same numbers as a potential 140 GOP members this time...which is irrelevant. We have never been this divided since 1968...and then I believe were are worse off now. The act is the same, the losing party objects and claims fraud or disenfranchisement. It is likely every single one of those protests was political and not based on truth....Truth is the victim here.

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      Boring Oatmeal

      Very big feelings.

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      rlritt

      NO NO NO. Stop spouting this nonsense! I'm serious. Everyone knows the laws and regulations whether they get changed or not. Both parties are involved in election administration. Two were people were caught sending in ballots for their dead mothers, and they voted for Trump. Each person gets one ballot.
      You are the reason people have to go over and over the process, recount votes and go over every false claim with a detailed explanation. People who continuously refuse to accept what is before their eyes are idiots.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Earl King

        “[T]he Court concludes that Respondent Kathy Boockvar, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, lacked statutory authority to issue the November 1, 2020, guidance to Respondents County Boards of Elections insofar as that guidance purported to change the deadline … for certain electors to verify proof of identification,” Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt said in a court order.

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      2. Tim Johnson

        Earl King lives for the reaction; don't give it to him

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          rlritt

          I've let this charade get to me. I've lost all patience.

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      Scarlette Tarte

      Liberals did not "change the rules" to suit them. Remember please that Pennsylvania and Georgia are REPUBLICAN led, AND control the state houses. Are you really making the claim that Republicans were too dumb in those states to realize what was happening with the rule changes, and those "wily libtards" tricked them all and out maneuvered them?

      If that is the case, then you really should rethink your support of Republicans. If they are that dumb, maybe they should not be holding office.

      Liberals have long wanted to get rid of the EC and they make no secret of it. They feel it is an undemocratic anachronism that gives undo power to certain minority groups. A vote should count as ONE vote, not 40. Yet under the EC, the votes from voters in rural areas count as much more than a person in an urban area. This should not be.

      Believe me Earl, we liberals don't need to be sneaky and "out maneuver" Republicans. We just make our argument. And it is one that most people favor. For as unpopular as the Democratic party is in rural America, it's ideas are the most popular, much more so than conservative ones.



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        Scarlette Tarte

        Oh, and Arizona too.

        And if Trump's election was fraudulent, these dummies never seem to understand that makes all the others elected this cycle fraudulent as well.

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          Earl King

          The Secretary of State is Kathy Boockvar is a Democrat. There election laws were changed by the Supreme Court on her behest. Ballot harvesting is a travesty. Not wanting to verify signatures is smarmy. Using motor motor laws to register illegal immigrants then sending mail in ballots to them is asking them to commit fraud. You do know illegals are allowed to vote in Local Elections...The Law only prevents them from voting for Federal Office Holders. I cannot think of one Republican or a Conservative who wants to use the levers of the Federal Government to fundamentally change America. Only Democrats want to do that. My guess is as usual they'll go too far and get tossed out...The only down side is how fearful will you make the public as you pull their guns from their dead fingers when you have sent a Federal Police agent to pull the banned AR 15 from someones home who objects?

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          1. Beth

            No, the election laws in PA were NOT changed at the behest of Boockvar or the SC of PA. Mail-in ballots by request (as opposed to absentee ballots) was LEGISLATION written and passed by the REPUBLICAN legislature in 2019. Was used for the primary with no complaints.

            The only element of the "election laws" that was changed was the PA SC extending the ability to accept mail-in ballots as delivered by the USPS up through Nov. 6 if they were postmarked by Nov. 3rd. I believe they also said ballots could be accepted if the they had no postmark (I don't know how many times I've received mail that hasn't been postmarked).

            SCOTUS said those votes had to be set aside and counted separately. They totaled approximately 10,000, which was much lower than the margin by which Biden won.

            The laws don't dictate the placement/number/location of ballot boxes. That is left to the election officials, and if you would examine it, that is different in each county. And I'm fairly confident that each location had cameras, since PA requires voters to return their own ballots:

            "Under Pennsylvania law, voters may only return their own ballots. The only exceptions to this are for voters with a disability who have designated someone in writing to deliver their ballot, or need an emergency absentee ballot.

            Voters who apply for and receive a mail ballot and then decide they want to vote at the polls must bring their entire mail ballot packet with them to be voided, including both envelopes.

            If a voter applies for a mail ballot but does not return it and no longer has the mail ballot and envelopes, they may vote by provisional ballot at the polls on election day. Their county board of elections will then verify that they did not vote by mail before counting their provisional ballot."

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            Bill B

            There it is again... the hop, skip and jump from one preposterous claim to another ending with the Molon Labe battle-cry... as if the latter had anything do with the topic. It just gets thrown in there because it bubbled up from the perpetual "commie Democrats" stream of consciousness.

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            Rochejaquelein

            Unbelievably feeble. Endlessly pretending there is mass voting by illegal aliens without evidence does not make it true. "Ballot harvesting" is a scare word for a practice that the Florida GOP has done with great success (and much justification) for years and CAGOP tried in 2020 (running afoul of rules they had argued for).

            You do know that Beto O'Rourke's campaign collapsed right at the time he made the only statement by a (briefly) serious figure about confiscating guns, right? You know that a federal law for gun confiscation is about as likely, given that any Democrat congressional majority would be incredibly narrow and dependent on pro 2nd amendment moderates like Joe Manchin, as Laura Ingraham correctly identifying Josh Hawley as arguing for more socialist policies than Joe Biden?

            And many Americans, including former Republican loyalists and philosophical conservatives like me, believe that the current Trump era "national populist" GOP absolutely wants and has used the levers of government to distort the market and tilt the playing field in favor of the already grossly politically overrepresented and taxpayer coddled rural and exurban areas.

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    4. Tim Johnson

      You're not helping the divide by promoting some nonsense 'gut-feel' that voting irregularities might have happened.

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        Earl King

        I am reporting the "nonsense" that the pollsters have shown. Do you not read much. Go look up the percentage of GOP voters who feel something happened, it like 80%. I believe the number was very high for Democrats in 2016. WTF, why are you blaming me for how others feel? You're a joke...Come up with a real criticism.

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          rlritt

          Because the huckster Trump can't believe he didn't win because he is a spoiled, rich Manhattan playboy who thinks he deserves everything he wants. Anyone who supports this immoral, self centered grifter should be ashamed.

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        2. Anonymous

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            rlritt

            Amen, brother.

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    5. Avatar photo
      JimS

      " We have never been this divided since 1968...and then I believe were are worse off now.". I think this is largely true. If we don't get our act together and unify China will succeed in taking our position as world leader and we will have to live in their world. We can either stop hating the evil "other" or lose it all to China. There aren't other choices.

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      Narwhal

      Did you watch Gabriel Sterling’s press conference yesterday?

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        Earl King

        No, what was the salient point?

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          Narwhal

          Do you know who he is?

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            Earl King

            yes, I saw it. As you know perception vs. reality is really hard. I mean can you believe it, there are Democrats who really think Trump is a Russian asset and they help him steal the election....Talk about false info...right?

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            Earl King

            not ringing a bell....but am a little brain dead as my medic shift lasted almost 16 hours after getting home at 9:30 pm last night a wolfing down two martinis after getting up at 5am yesterday....busy day.

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  4. Jemcmichael

    Sunshine and transparency in the election process is a wonderful thing, but the importance of these things are predicated on the idea that the public understands or at least will try to understand how the electoral process works in the first place.

    Unfortunately, we have a vocal portion of the electorate who has taken all this openly available information as an opportunity to confirm their preconceived ideas that there would be fraud in this election thanks to months / years of Trump screaming fraud. Instead of taking these "discrepancies" and seeking to understand if there is a reasonable explanation, they just use them in their echo chambers to further insist that there is fraud.

    Much of this goes back to the polarization in this country. If you believe that the Democrats are a party of Marxists hell bent on destroying this country, then of course they would try to steal the election. And of course they would have explanations for the "discrepancies." The whole thing is just infuriating as a lifelong Republican.

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      Scarlette Tarte

      Correct. The actual answer to making people feel secure in the elections, is having it be a requirement that they work the polls every few years. Most people in this country have NO IDEA what actually happens in an election.

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        rlritt

        It helped me. I started as a poll watcher in 2004 and then went on to work every election for 10 years. It really gave me a clear idea of how there are rules for every contingency, that poll workers represent both parties, and every effort is made to conduct a fair and legal election.

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        Narwhal

        No way that requiring adults to serve as poll workers would ever get passed into law.

        K-12 students are a captive audience. I’m not sure this would pass nationwide, but one way to get more HS students to take Civics seriously is to make passing a citizenship test a requirement for graduation. But, then the problem of teaching to the test arises, so more Civics instruction needs to included throughout K-12.

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      Narwhal

      In HS school I received one semester of instruction on the topic of civics. Many of my classmates didn’t take it seriously.

      I don’t know if that was the norm for the time or not, just my experience. And I don’t know what the current situation is tbh.

      But, maybe we should place a greater emphasis on teaching civics early, often, with as little bias as possible, and with increasing depth to K-12 students. Seems like it might be relevant, I think some of our founders thought so.

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        Merrijane

        Maybe place a greater emphasis on teaching critical thinking. Appropriate skepticism. Not assuming that people who say the “right” things are trustworthy.

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        1. Anonymous

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            Narwhal

            In college I had an English professor who was working on a side project about animal rights and he told us on the first day of instruction that all assignments would be on that topic and related materials. Ok. I spoke with him after class and asked him if he would accept con arguments and not just pro arguments. He replied he would not. I dropped his class and couldn’t get into another English class until the next semester. Luckily, the next professor was terrific and not political in any way. I never complained to the school administration about the animal rights activist English professor. Maybe I should have.

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          Narwhal

          It couldn’t hurt. But why not a greater emphasis on both?

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        Narwhal

        “ Nor am I less pursuaded, that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing, which can better deserve your patrionage, than the promotion of Science and Literature. Knowledge is in every Country the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures of Government recieve their impression so immediately from the sense of the Community as in our’s, it is proportionably essential. To the security of a free Constitution it contributes in various ways: By convincing those, who are entrusted with the public administration, that every valuable end of Government is best answered by the enlightened confidence of the people: And by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of Society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy, but temperate vigilence against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.”

        https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0361

        Gotta say, I find this excerpt especially relevant to the current objections by some to wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID.

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          Bill B

          Terrific

          "... distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of Society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last,"

          That pretty much nails the popular confusion of those who harbor thier grievances as if they are immune to the "necessary exercise of lawful authority" and inoculated from the "...inevitable exigencies of Society".

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            Narwhal

            Yup. Washington was full of wisdom and is still relevant today.

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          Scarlette Tarte

          Love that line "to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority...".

          Exactly what is missing especially among our "conservative" brethren.

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        Narwhal

        Fwiw, my teacher was a libertarian and he made no effort to hide this. He also liked to expound on his beliefs from time to time.

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    Narwhal

    Peter Navarro, Trump’s Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, went on Judge Jeannie and said, “this election was stolen, the Democrats used a lot of legal means to get to an illegal end”.

    I’m afraid that fact checking, while important and necessary, will be completely useless in discussions with some/many Trump supporters.

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    1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

      While we all hope it never happens, it is possible that at some time in the future true patriots will need to resort to extreme measures to forcibly resist an unfair election. This ain't it.

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        Narwhal

        Who are “true patriots” in your mind? What are examples of “extreme measures”? What would be an example of an “unfair election”?

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        1. Very Old Grumpy Guy

          Hard to imagine and a low probability but I can come up with some implausible, yet possible scenarios. At that point, people of ethics and a good conscious, would need to rise up against a tyrant. To rise up FOR the tyrant, in this case, is asinine.

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            Narwhal

            If such a tyrant rose to power, can you imagine any scenario where they did so without the support of a sizable portion of the active duty military?

            If yes, then how would they have done so?

            If no, then exactly what chance would your “true patriots” have in a conflict with the US military? For example, what could two Apache helicopters or predator drones do to a group of around 100 citizens armed with AR-15s?

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            Narwhal

            “Hard to imagine and a low probability but I can come up with some implausible, yet possible scenarios.”

            Such as...

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    Pat Riot

    Republican and former FBI director James Comey once described Trump as sounding exactly like the mobsters he prosecuted and you can hear it here.

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  7. Lindsay Folkerts

    Thanks! Doing great and tedious work!

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    Jim Tung

    Great job, folks.

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    Gz Expat

    So sad you have to spend so much time on this stuff. Thanks for setting the record straight, but, yeesh.

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    Jaliranchr

    Thank you, Khaya. I'm sorry you and Alec have to wade through the effluent so often.

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