“Georgia Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler endorsed false allegations of voter fraud and unfair elections in a joint letter calling on Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to immediately resign after the party underperformed in the state. “The Secretary of State has failed to deliver honest and transparent elections. He has failed the people of Georgia, and he should step down immediately,” Perdue and Loeffler wrote on Monday. The letter, which alleges “mismanagement and lack of transparency from the Secretary of State,” presents no evidence or even examples of such, but demands Raffensperger’s head anyway. Raffensperger, the top election official in Georgia, is an elected Republican who was endorsed by President Donald Trump and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue and Loeffler now join the chorus of elected Republicans echoing Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election and his allegations of voter fraud. Trump has repeatedly claimed since emerging as a Republican Party political figure during the Obama administration that all national elections where Republicans have not won, and even some where they have, are tainted by mass voter fraud. (There is no evidence of mass voter or election fraud either in the 2020 election or in the recent past.) New: @Perduesenate and @KLoeffler have issued a joint statement calling for the @GaSecofState, a Republican, to step down: “The management of Georgia elections has become an embarrassment for our state. Georgians are outraged, and rightly so.” #GASen pic.twitter.com/Qq35OUVfft— Eli Yokley (@eyokley) November 9, 2020 The allegations from Perdue and Loeffler came as they both failed to reach the 50% threshold on Nov. 3 to avoid runoff elections. They will now face Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively, in elections scheduled for Jan. 5. The outcome of these races will determine which party controls the Senate. Raffensperger declined to resign in a statement responding to the letter. He also defended Georgia’s elections as “transparent” and “orderly” while calling on the senators to pay more attention to their reelection campaigns. “Let me start by saying that is not going to happen,” Raffensperger said about the call for him to resign. “The voters of Georgia hired me, and the voters will be the one to fire me.” He called the election a “resounding success,” as the state saw record turnout and few problems. While he claimed, without evidence, that he believed there was “illegal voting,” he said his office was thoroughly investigating any allegations, but that it was “unlikely” it would shrink Biden’s margin enough for Trump to win the state. The secretary of state previously defended Georgia’s elections on Friday amid Trump’s efforts to undermine faith in the outcome. “The stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides,” Raffensperger said on Nov. 6. “We will not let that debate distract us from our work. We will get it right.” The secretary of state’s voting-systems manager also said that the state has not seen “widespread irregularities.”
