Can Georgians trust in a fair election anymore?
Over 1,700 people in the state were singled out for illegally casting two ballots in the 2020 election, but election officials say that not only were those votes not canceled out, but none of those who double-voted have thus far been prosecuted. This raises the question of whether the vote fraud that took place in the presidential race will occur again in the two simultaneous U.S. Senate runoff elections next month.
Not surprisingly, the majority of those who double-voted were Democrats who cast an absentee ballot either by mail or drop box and also voted in person on Election Day. Under state law, this is a felony.
The biggest number of the lawbreakers were from Fulton County (which includes Atlanta). In many cases, poll workers allowed voters to cast a second ballot.
As Real Clear Investigations reports:
Hundreds of workers assigned to county poll sites were recruited and trained by the Democrat-run Georgia chapter of the ACLU and a minority-owned temp agency run by Democrat donors, according to documents obtained by RealClearInvestigations. Most of them were young and inexperienced.
Before the election, the ACLU urged anyone “threatened with prosecution” over double-voting allegations to contact the chapter for legal assistance. It is now signing up poll workers for the Jan. 5 runoff races. And the temp agency, Happy Faces Personnel Group, remains under contract with the county to supply workers for that critical election, despite complaints from poll managers and poll watchers that its recruits were “poorly trained” and “highly partisan.” The Georgia runoffs will determine control of the Senate.
Despite the fact that the number of suspected double-voting felons is the largest in Georgia history, there have reportedly been no cases referred to the state attorney general for criminal investigation.
“This office does not have any referrals on double voting cases so far from the State Election Board related to the June 2020 primary or November 2020 general [election],” said Katie Byrd, spokesperson for Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican.
The lack of any action on the matter appears to contradict assurances last month from Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to prosecute those who try to undermine our elections to the fullest extent of the law.”
Fraud cases must be referred to the attorney general by the election board, which Raffensperger, a Republican, chairs.
“I am terribly disappointed in the lack of enforcement of our election laws,” said Forsyth County Commissioner Dennis Brown, a Republican. “We are asking for the same outcome in January during the runoffs if something is not done soon.”
Raffensperger has taken heat from his own party, and even from President Trump, for his handling of the election.
Perhaps in response to the criticism, the secretary of state has initiated investigations into various groups, including one founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and “voter suppression” alarmist Stacey Abrams, for seeking to “aggressively” register “ineligible, out-of-state, or deceased voters” before the runoff elections.
But some election officials feel Raffensperger is afraid of being called a “racist” by Abrams, as she and other Democrats frequently portray anti-voter-fraud efforts as race-based attempts to suppress minority votes.
“I am not sure the secretary of state has the backbone for this,” Fulton County poll manager Suzi Voyles said. “We have turned in thousands of unlawful voters and not one of them has been prosecuted.”
Noting that this is Raffesperger’s “first political office,” Dennis Brown gave the opinion that the secretary of state is out of his depth.
“He is a little bit afraid, politically, and buckled a little more than he should have to Abrams, who’s trying to stir up racial discord,” Brown said. “That’s why he printed up all those absentee ballot [request] forms and sent them to people who hadn’t asked for them — which was just a terrible action, because it creates all kinds of problems with double voting and other fraud — and that’s why he agreed to install all those drop boxes, which just opens the door for illegal ballot harvesting.”
It was Raffensperger who, under pressure from Abrams and her activists, agreed to mail out absentee ballot applications and install ballot drop-off boxes in Georgia’s 159 counties, leading to a sky-rocketing of absentee voting throughout the state.
“The one thing that the system cannot safeguard against with the new drop boxes is voters who go through the steps saying they did not request an absentee ballot, vote at the polls, and then later that day drop a ballot in the absentee box before 7 p.m.,” Voyles warned.
In Georgia, voting twice is punishable by one to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. Proving intentionality is not required under Peach State law.
