Georgia Secretary of State: No systemic fraud in US election

There was no evidence of systemic fraud in the US election, Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on Sunday, as President Donald Trump continues to pressure officials to overturn his narrow loss in the state.

“We’ve never found systemic fraud, not enough to overturn the election,” Raffensperger, a Republican who supported Trump, told broadcaster ABC News.

On Saturday, Trump addressed his first rally since Joe Biden won the US election last month, telling a crowd in Georgia that he considered himself the winner of the poll and vowing to continue fighting the result.

Before the rally, Trump pressured Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in a phone call to help overturn his loss in the state, US media reported.

Geoff Duncan, the Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, on Sunday told CNN that Kemp would not accede to Trump’s demand to convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him.

“We’re certainly not going to move the goal posts at this point in the election,” Duncan said.

Trump lost the historically conservative state by less than 13,000 votes, marking the first time Georgia voted for a Democratic president in nearly 30 years.

Trump has claimed that the state was subject to fraud but a recount in the state affirmed Biden’s victory and the results were certified by Kemp and Raffensperger.

Georgia officials have recently criticized Trump’s election fraud rhetoric, saying it was inspiring violence.

Raffensperger, whom Trump has called an “enemy of the people,” said he and his family had received death threats and poll workers had been targeted.

“You’re seeing just irrational angry behaviour, it’s unpatriotic,” he said.

Asked on CNN if Trump’s attacks on Georgia election officials upset him, Duncan replied: “Absolutely it disgusts me.”

The state’s lieutenant governor also said the misinformation Trump was spreading about the November 3 election could hurt the chances of Georgia Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who face hotly-contested run-off elections in January that will decide which party controls the upper chamber of Congress.

“I worry that this continuous, you know, fanning of the flames around misinformation puts us in a negative position with regards to the January 5 run-off,” Duncan said.

“The mountains of misinformation are not helping the process, they’re only hurting it,” he added.

Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the November election have put many Republicans in the awkward situation of telling Georgia residents to vote again in January while also claiming that the voting infrastructure is untrustworthy.

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