Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said on Nov. 9 his office has yet to receive any reports of “credible incidents” of systemic fraud or voter disenfranchisement from the state’s attorney general or secretary of state.
When asked on CNN about any alleged “widespread irregularities” in Georgia’s vote counting, Duncan, a Republican, said there has yet to be any report forwarded to his level.
“My office has been in close communication with the secretary of state’s office and the attorney general’s office and made sure that if there’s any sort of systemic examples of fraud or voter disenfranchisement across the voting base, to let us know,” Duncan said. “We’ve not had any credible incidents raised to our level yet.
“We’ll continue to make sure that the opportunity to make sure every legal ballot is counted is there, but at this point, we’ve not seen any sort of credible examples.”
He pledged to take “every sort of legal opportunity” to investigate and rectify if “there is an issue out there” in Georgia.
“We’ve not had any sort of credible incidents raised to our level yet and so we’ll continue to make sure that the opportunity to make sure every legal ballot is counted is there,” he said.
Duncan’s remarks came days after a Georgia judge summarily dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign that alleged ballots arriving after the deadline had been improperly mixed in with those arriving on time.
“The Court finds that there is no evidence that the ballots referenced in the petition were received after 7 p.m. on Election Day, thereby making those ballots invalid,” Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass said in a decision after an one-hour hearing.
Democrat Joe Biden, who claimed victory in the presidential election amid mounting legal challenges over alleged voter fraud, currently has a razor-thin lead in Georgia, where President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by about 5 percent, or more than 200,000 votes, in 2016.
Last week, Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said that the race was so close that a recount was inevitable.
“The final tally in Georgia at this point has huge implications for the entire country,” Raffensperger said on Nov. 6. “The stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides. We will not let those debates distract us from our work. We will get it right, and we will defend the integrity of our elections.”
