President Donald Trump on Friday said that changes made by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to loosen the state’s absentee ballot signature verification laws were unconstitutional, making November’s election in the state as well as the Senate runoff races ”illegal and invalid.”
Trump issued his claims in a series of three posts on Twitter, referring to the consent decree that Raffensperger agreed to with the Georgia Democratic Party in March to settle a lawsuit regarding mail-in ballots.
”Before even discussing the massive corruption which took place in the 2020 Election, which gives us far more votes than is necessary to win all of the Swing States (only need three), it must be noted that the State Legislatures were not in any way responsible for the massive changes made to the voting process, rules and regulations, many made hastily before the election, and therefore the whole State Election is not legal or Constitutional,” Trump wrote.
”Additionally, the Georgia Consent Decree is Unconstitutional & the State 2020 Presidential Election is therefore both illegal and invalid, and that would include the two current Senatorial Elections. In Wisconsin, Voters not asking for applications invalidates the Election. All of this without even discussing the millions of fraudulent votes that were cast or altered!”
The claim is similar to one made by famed Georgia attorney Lin Wood, who sued in federal court in November claiming that only the state legislature — not Raffensperger — has the authority to change election law.
Republican incumbents Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are facing off against Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to contest the state’s two Senate seats in Tuesday’s runoff elections. While Perdue received a few thousand votes shy of more than half the votes in his race against Ossoff, no candidate achieved the necessary more than 50% in either election in November.