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Citizens for Ethics in Washington Calls Out Lindsey Graham After Report He Suggested Georgia Toss Out Legal Ballots

Last updated on November 18th, 2020 at 05:26 pm

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made headlines last night after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Graham suggested he should try to toss out legal ballots in the state, where a recount is underway.

Today, Graham is leading a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election,” which prompted a response from the government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics in Washington (CREW).

“The thing that’s most urgent about censorship, suppression and the 2020 election is that Lindsey Graham reportedly tried to interfere in the counting of votes in Georgia. If true, he should resign from his chairmanship immediately,” the organization wrote.

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Raffensperger has remained steadfast in his account of what took place.

“He asked if the ballots could be matched back to the voters,” Raffensperger told CNN last night. “And then he, I got the sense it implied that then you could throw those out for any, if you look at the counties with the highest frequent error of signatures. So that’s the impression that I got.”

It was just an implication of, ‘Look hard and see how many ballots you could throw out,'” he added.

Graham denied any wrongdoing, calling any suggestion “ridiculous.”

“What I’m trying to find out was how do you verify signatures on mail-in ballots in these states that are the center of attention? So like when you mail in a ballot, you got to have some way to verify that the signature on the envelope actually matches the person who requested the ballot,” Graham said. “It seems to me that Georgia has some protections that maybe other states don’t have, where you go into the portal to get your ballot. But I thought it was a good conversation. I’m surprised to hear him verify it that way.”

“So they expanded mail-in voting, and how you verify the signatures to me is the big issue. If you’re going to have mail-in voting, you’ve got to verify that the person who signed the envelope is also the person who requested the ballot,” he continued.

There is no evidence of widespread election fraud. President Donald Trump and his surrogates within the Republican Party have continue to push the assertion despite a joint statement from the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees, that they found “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” The statement went on to refer to the 2020 general election as “the most secure in American history.”