A Fed-Up Georgia Official Systematically Destroyed Trump’s Taped Election Allegations, One by One

TNS/Zuma

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

One day after audio leaked of Donald Trump begging Georgia’s secretary of state to somehow “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s election results, a top Georgia election official systematically debunked each “easily, provably false” claim of voter fraud the outgoing president made.

Standing in front of a poster board titled “CLAIM VS FACT” in the Georgia State Capitol on Monday, voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling explained that no dead people voted, no people under age 18 on Election Day voted, no stacks of ballots were scanned twice, and no voting machines erroneously flipped votes. In short, the Georgia ballots, which have been counted three times, definitively favor Joe Biden.

“We have seen nothing in our investigations of any of these data claims that shows there’s nearly enough ballots to change the outcome,” Sterling said.

In an hourlong call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday, Trump repeated his claims of election fraud, demanded that Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes,” and insisted that it was impossible for him to have lost the state—all this after attempting to reach Raffensperger 18 different times

“This is all easily, provably false,” Sterling said of Trump’s fraud claims. “Yet the president persists, and by doing so undermines Georgians’ faith in the election system—especially Republican Georgians in this case—which is important because we have a big election coming up tomorrow, and everybody deserves to have their vote counted if they want it to be, Republican and Democrat alike.”

Watch Sterling’s exasperated explanation below:

Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

Owned by no one—except you.

We just keep seeing it happen: Newsrooms owned by billionaires and corporations are spinning their own narratives, overwriting the truth, following only stories that keep them in the pocket of those with even more power.

Not here. We’re not owned by anyone. We’re not part of any cult that demands our allegiance to a bottom line. We’ve spoken up and spoken out while other newsrooms changed their stories—or cut them altogether—to keep the C suite happy.

Our mission is to find the truth and amplify it. That’s why we’re independent, nonprofit, and, crucially, funded by readers. The investigations on our website will always be free to read, watch, and listen to, but our newsroom is powered by readers who pitch in what they can so we can keep asking the hard questions.

Can you chip in today?

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

INDEPENDENT. BECAUSE OF YOU.

Mother Jones has no billionaires calling the shots—just readers like you making fearless reporting possible

Donate