Trump Supporters Seek an Audit in Georgia. What Are They Looking For?

No widespread voter fraud has been uncovered in previous audits or recounts.

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In the wake of the ongoing election audit in Arizona, supporters of Donald Trump have called for a similar audit in Georgia in another attempt to prove voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. 

On May 19, Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones, a Trump supporter, proposed an audit, because, as Jones said in a statement, “Georgians still have questions about irregularities found in the 2020 election and they deserve answers.” 

On May 21, Judge Brian Amero agreed to unseal more than 145,000 Fulton County absentee ballots, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The decision was sparked by a lawsuit filed in the Fulton County Superior Court alleging that fraudulent votes were cast in the election among other voting irregularities in the county. 

The Dispatch Fact Check has previously examined a number of voter fraud claims in Georgia, where Joe Biden won the state by 11,779 votes. Amero ordered ballots to be unsealed despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud. According to a court record, Amero’s order stated: “Petitioner’s motion to unseal is granted to the extent Petitioners request that they be permitted to inspect and scan the November 3, 2020, general election absentee ballots.” The court order also states that: “Petitioners shall only be permitted to inspect and scan said ballots in accordance with protocols and practice that will be set forth by further order of the Court.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    Jason Gibson

    By now I feel like all of the conspiracy theorists should’ve dropped off like the police officers in the opening credits of Quincy

    But it seems people keep doubling down I don’t know if it will ever stop

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  2. Avatar photo
    Pat Riot

    And by "Trump supporters" the author means, "the Republican Party".

    This is going to play out everywhere Republicans have a working majority in the entire USA. Trump made Republican voters hate democracy and the Republican party follows the voters.

    This is why every elected Republican in the USA, anywhere, no matter how "reasonable" they appear to be, is a threat to our democratic republic and its constitution.

    Electing more Republicans means more conspiracy theories associated with our elections. Period.

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  3. John Campbell

    For nearly five years, traditional conservatives and conventional republicans like me have watched in sustained disbelief as the GOP morphed into this crazed, paranoid and belligerent cult.

    And thanks to the moral cowardice of politicians who knew better, we are now at a point where a once great political party is positioned to undermine legitimacy and trust in our election system.

    Trumpists believe only what they want to believe. They attack every source of information that doesn't conform to their conspiratorial world-view. You can't persuade them, steer them in a different direction or reason with them at all.

    Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and all the other boneless wonders continue to bet that they can ride this out - like it's a bad fever that will break at some point - as if somehow the old days of Reaganism, Jack Kemp, Jack Danforth and other former GOP statesmen might come back. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

    Sadly, this country is drifting into a bad place politically and culturally. America is a soul-sick country. Paranoid. Mean. Resentful. Unpatriotic. Un-Christian. Unprincipled.

    January 6 wasn't the coda to the Trump era. I was the beginning of something even worse.

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  4. Avatar photo
    George.Skinner

    Hardcore Trump supporters are never going to accept any election result that doesn't involve Trump winning. They're not looking for proof that he lost; they're looking for any evidence that might support the idea that he didn't lose.

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    Kevin C. Smith

    Excellent fact check as always!

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  6. Gerald Cuesta

    And if this does spread, will those who belittle the concerns of those who always knew trump was a danger finally relent? Of course not.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Pat Riot

      I knew this guy that went absolutely nuts with his illness. He was almost hysterical about it. He took so many drugs it made him sick and made his hair fall out. He spent time in treatment instead of doing all of the things he normally did. We always made fun of him, and said that he had Cancer Derangement Syndrome before he died.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Pat Riot

        -- by Jack Handy

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        1. Avatar photo
          Probably Wrong

          I understand the point you’re making and I tend to agree.

          Still, yikes. What an analogy.

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  7. Avatar photo
    CynthiaW

    "This is a really boring conspiracy theory. Let's talk about aliens!" (Jack Butler)

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  8. Avatar photo
    Matt J

    It seems we are still in the early phase of the conspiracy, where they still have hope that reality is on their side somehow. After this one fails, and any others they cook up fail as well, it'll shift fully into fantasy, move online to whatever the next 8kun is, and get much more dangerous.

    Thankfully, with Trump's mouthpieces cut off, he can no longer stoke the flames as he used to. With him as the only possible figurehead, we won't be getting a new figure to rile this particular theory up, so the intensity can only go down from here. Let's just hope that the worst is behind us, because I'd hate to see things get worse than January 6th.

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      scott

      I feel like we just got finished watching Star Wars: A New Hope and have no idea what that new exciting movie, The Empire Strikes Back, has in store. Pretty sure Luke is gonna be blowing up Imperial Death Stars and everything will be just fine. Han Solo is pretty cool too, he'll be fine.

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  9. Kevin Brady

    There is no number of audits great enough to satisfy those who are convinced the election was stolen. They could've witnessed every one of the 155 million votes being cast through some kind of superpower, and they still wouldn't believe the result.

    Whataboutism-ing here, but it reminds me of the 2+ yrs of the Russia collusion nonsense. This is the capital-R Right Wing version of that. Hold a bunch of ridiculous 'audits' across several states to create a cloud under the new presidency. I try not to think about what the next stunt will be in '24.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Probably Wrong

      Guess it’ll depend on who wins. We are at least somewhat blessed that the current madness is largely cloistered in right-leaning spaces, but can you imagine the damage to trust in our system if major media outlets discover the thrill of not understanding how elections work and then piling anecdotes high to sow doubt when you don’t like the result?

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  10. Avatar photo
    Adam Bridge

    This is called muddying the waters. Keep churning and you'll get people to believe there has to be something there because they keep looking. That they don't find anything other than the usual sort of goofiness that happen in all elections must mean that the election fraudsters are just more clever than we thought!

    That's how it works and that's what's happening: anything to discredit the election works to the advantage of, well, those who want to overturn the election.

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      Adam Bridge

      I should add that the vast majority of Americans don't have a clue about how our elections are administered. The complex mechanisms to maintain the integrity of the voting process and the vote counting process aren't something anyone sees - unless you've volunteered to be a part of them or have actually administered them.

      Because so few people actually know how it all works it's easy to toss in some water-marked ballots, some hidden/discarded ballots, a truckload of fakes, and people will believe it, partly because they want to and partly because they've been told by their leaders that massive fraud is happening.

      I wonder if you asked those who believe fraud happened "Did it happen in your county?" what proportion would say "Well, not here, we do things RIGHT!"

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        Chris L

        This is exactly the reason Congress has such poor approval ratings, yet the worst of the incumbents keep getting in - those reps' constituents say everyone else is bad except for theirs.

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