ATLANTA — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced his office found nearly 1,000 cases of double voting during the June and August elections statewide. And they could face felony charges for it.
At a Tuesday morning news conference, Raffensperger said 150,000 people who cast absentee ballots canceled them at the polls but those 1,000 did not.
“There are those who want to try to game the system, and that can’t happen,” Raffensperger said. “There are a 1,000 people out of 150,000 that actually double voted, knowing full well that they had filled out an absentee ballot, had mailed it back in and then showed up the day of the election.”
[Your Voice, Your Vote: Complete Channel 2 Action News coverage of 2020 Election]
Raffensperger says they are actively investigating each one and will prosecute. But Georgia Democrats had a different take on his news conference and said in a statement:
“It is clear that rather than do his job of promoting the safety and security of our voting process, the secretary of state is instead pushing the GOP’s voting conspiracy theories and disinformation."
Fair Fight Action, Stacey Abrams' voting rights organization, called his news conference a “deliberate distraction.”
“Georgia’s top elections official has decided to push a right-wing narrative spreading across the country rather than protecting the constitutional rights of every Georgian.”
All this comes after President Trump suggested that people try voting first by absentee then in-person to see if that ballot got counted.
“And you send them in, but you go to vote, and if they haven’t counted it, you can vote, so that’s the way I view it,” Trump said last week.
[How Do I Vote by Absentee Ballot in Georgia?]
Raffensperger meanwhile continues to warn people not to double vote during November’s election. Raffensperger said if you try and vote twice, you’re guilty of committing a serious crime.
“Double voting is a felony. It is a minimum of a year in prison, up to 10 years, up to a $100,00 fine, and we will prosecute.”
Raffensperger said those 1,000 double votes did get counted in 100 different counties, but had no impact on the outcome of the races.
Raffensperger said the new election system gives officials “great tools” to combat any kind of double voting.
Cox Media Group
