Conservative Activist on Georgia’s Second Recount: The Most Important Part Is Matching Signatures

Bill Pan
11/23/2020
Updated:
11/24/2020

An inspection of signatures on Georgia’s 1.3 million absentee ballots cast in this month’s general election is going to be the most important part of the upcoming recount, said Georgia-based conservative activist Jenny Beth Martin.

When asked if she has seen any issue that could potentially turn Georgia’s election results in favor of President Donald Trump, Martin replied that it will depend on getting access to the signatures on absentee ballots.

“I think that’s going to be one of the most important aspects of it,” Martin told The Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek. “There are some other pieces that may come to light. Right now, I do think the most important part is going to be looking at the signatures.”

In Georgia, voters are allowed to request an absentee ballot without the need to provide a reason. A record 1.3 million Georgians voted via absentee ballots, presumably to avoid potential exposure to the CCP virus.

“We need an audit of the signatures on the absentee ballot envelopes,” Martin said. “And we need to make sure that those signatures match the absentee ballot application, and also that the absentee ballot application matches the signature on file from the voter registration signature or the motor voter when you went to get your driver’s license signature.”

“Right now, I think that there is reason to believe that that process may not have been done properly,” Martin continued, adding that while she wasn’t implying a “widespread conspiracy,” but she was concerned that many of those ballots might have been counted without the same “tight inspection” that had been in place in the past elections.

“So I think it’s very important that we have an audit of all of those signatures to make sure that the ballots that are being counted were actually legally cast ballots,” she said.

Martin also highlighted the apparently very low rejection rate and very high participation rate in Georgia’s absentee voting, saying those numbers are “alarming.”

“The rejection rate for the absentee ballots was much lower in this election cycle than in previous election cycles. So we had more absentee ballots and fewer rejections,” she said. “We’re human beings, human beings sometimes make mistakes. So I don’t, I just don’t think that it is only a voter education.”

“Also, the voter turnout itself was so high that it was the highest as a percentage of eligible voters in 120 years, and that is really unusual,” she continued. “I’ve talked to some statisticians about this. And they saw that they find it alarming because it’s such an anomaly.”

According to Martin, an audit of the signatures is important to whoever ultimately wins the White House race, as the practice helps clear legitimacy around the next presidency.

“What happened to President Trump for four years, is the other side kept saying, ‘He was not legitimately elected president,’” Martin said. “If I were Joe Biden, I would want to eliminate that as an argument that I would have in a debate, that I would have to deal with for the next four years.”

“And here in Georgia, there’s a fairly simple way to take care of this and figure at least that aspect out. Were the ballots that were cast in the absentee manner and mailed in, were they cast legally? Go check these signatures.”

Jan Jekielek contributed to this report.