Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger releases scathing op-ed criticizing President Trump

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Secretary of State is out with a new op-ed in Wednesday’s edition of USA Today.

The headline is blunt: “My family voted for Trump. He threw us under the bus anyway.”

Brad Raffensperger is criticizing President Donald Trump’s campaign for questioning Georgia’s election results.

“We’ve been loyal Republicans. I’ve been a conservative all my life,” Raffensperger told Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray.

In the article, Raffensperger described the past few weeks as “difficult” for Georgia voters. He also said Trump has denied the outcome of the election.

“A losing presidential campaign refused to accept the facts, following a playbook written by a failed gubernatorial candidate two years before. A failed Senate candidate with nothing to do tried to undermine the integrity of Georgia’s elections,” Raffensperger wrote.

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The secretary of state also reiterated that elections are nonpartisan.

“Elections are the bedrock of our democracy. They need to be run fairly and, perhaps more important, impartially. That’s not partisan. That’s just American. Yet some don’t seem to see it that way,” Raffensperger wrote.

Trump and his allies continue to push Raffensperger to audit signatures on absentee ballot envelopes.

Georgia Rep. Jody Hice is just the latest lawmaker to tweet about it on Wednesday.

But Raffensperger told Gray that he can’t and won’t do that unless there is evidence of wrongdoing.

“So many claims here, has anyone brought you evidence of a problem with those signatures?” Gray asked Raffensperger.

“No one has brought us anything significant in nature, and that’s the issue,” he replied.

Meanwhile, the official statewide recount continues.

Fulton County had 50 employees counting Wednesday in the Georgia World Congress Center.

The machine recount was requested by the Trump campaign. Under Georgia law, a recount can be requested in a tight race. The total number of votes cast for Trump was within 0.5% of the total number of votes for former Vice President Joe Biden.

The county said the recount must be complete before Tuesday when the runoff election occurs to fill the late-Rep. John Lewis’ seat.

“This is a very transparent process, so you can see the observers looking over our shoulders so that everything is above board,” said Robb Pitts, chairman of the Fulton County Commission.

Taxpayers will bear the cost of these recounts.

READ RAFFENSPERGER’S ENTIRE OP-ED HERE.

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