(The Center Square) – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s downplaying of a 2020 election blunder as a mere “clerical error” has done little to quiet a growing backlash within his own party.
Far from accepting Raffensperger’s explanation that Fulton County’s failure to properly sign tabulation tapes “does not erase valid, legal votes,” 2020 election skeptics are calling for a federal investigation into what they view as a massive coverup. One state senator called for arrests and charges of treason.
The tabulation tapes in question included 315,000 votes – exponentially more than the 11,780 votes mentioned by President Donald Trump in his fateful recorded phone call to Raffensperger in January 2021. The issue came to light at a December meeting of the Georgia State Election Board. New procedures were put in place to ensure the mistake doesn’t happen again, Ann Brumbaugh, an attorney for the Fulton County Board of Registrations and Elections, told the State Election Board after not contesting the claim.
“I’m hopeful the Justice Department will impound the 2020 ballots and conduct a count that’s open to the public,” said David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of the 19 people prosecuted in the Fulton County election interference case in an interview with The Center Square. The charges against Shafer have been dropped since the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia dismissed the case.
“Maybe we need to put an asterisk next to the election results in the history books and determine who’s responsible for these errors and hold them accountable,” Shafer said.
Shafer and others who have blasted Raffensperger on social media this week said they know it’s far too late to overturn the 2020 election. And even if Georgia had gone red for Trump, he still would have lacked enough electoral votes to defeat Joe Biden.
But they say the revelations from this month’s Georgia State Election Board meeting are about vindication for the so-called election deniers and a chance to turn the tables on those who relentlessly investigated them for asking questions.
“I think there needs to be an investigation into these ballots and people need to be prosecuted,” said Georgia State Sen. Colton Moore, R-Trenton, who’s running for Congress to replace U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in an interview with The Center Square. “If the law isn’t going to be enforced, then that sets a precedent going forward.”
While indignation about Fulton County could become fodder for stump speeches and campaign ads, Dr. Charles Bullock, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, said he doubts the social media storm will affect the 2026 midterms.
“MAGA folks are always going to believe that there’s some kind of skullduggery that cost Trump Georgia in 2020 and in other states that he really did win the election,” Bullock said in an interview with The Center Square. “So those folks, I don’t think you are ever going to convince them otherwise. But for most Georgians, I think they have moved well beyond that and the average voter is probably isn’t thinking about 2026 in terms of elections.”
But there were more and more calls Tuesday for President Trump’s Justice Department to step in. Phil Kent, a conservative panelist on “The Georgia Gang” weekly TV show and publisher of James magazine, said the ongoing uproar is about holding accountable anyone who took part in manipulation and fraud.
“I think that the U.S. Attorney would be looking at it – who’s a Trump appointee named Teddy Hertzberg,” Kent said in an interview with The Center Square. “That would be the bottom line: an investigation by the U.S. Attorney or the U.S. Justice Department, with Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division.”
Garland Favorito, who leads the nonprofit, nonpartisan VoterGA, agrees with Kent that the issue is not about 2020 but what lies ahead.
“We want secure future elections,” Favorito said in an interview with The Center Square. “You cannot secure future elections if you don’t understand what happened in the past and fix it.”
Favorito, the DeKalb County Republican Party, the Chatham County Republican Party, and individual petitioner Richard J. Armstrong all filed a petition Monday challenging the 2019 certification of Dominion voting machines used in Georgia.
“We have a national security crisis that must be resolved before the 2026 primaries,” Favorito said.
