A top election official in Georgia pushed back Wednesday against unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud that President Donald Trump claims took place in two Senate runoff elections.
During a press conference, Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and Georgia’s Voting Systems Implementation Manager, said the Secretary of State’s office has not seen any evidence thus far of widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election.
“Nothing that seems real in any way shape or form quite honestly,” Sterling said.
Sterling also directly addressed claims made by Trump on Twitter, saying that the president was “finding fraud where none exists.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted, without evidence, that “they just happened to find 50,000 ballots late last night.” It’s common for large counties to release large tallies of votes at once, particularly in the case of absentee votes, which in the current election cycle have skewed Democratic.
Shortly after Trump tweeted his unsubstantiated claim, Sterling rebutted in a tweet of his own.
“No Mr. President, there weren’t “found” ballots,” Sterling tweeted. “We have known the number of advanced votes since this weekend. We saw record Election Day turnout. As of Monday 970,000 absentees had been accepted. 31k more were added in yesterday’s totals. That leaves 60k that came in yesterday.”
No Mr. President, there weren’t “found” ballots. We have known the number of advanced votes since this weekend. We saw record Election Day turnout. As of Monday 970,000 absentees had been accepted. 31k more were added in yesterday’s totals. That leaves 60k that came in yesterday. https://t.co/vMVMEooZUQ
— Gabriel Sterling (@GabrielSterling) January 6, 2021
As of early Wednesday morning, Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff led Republican incumbent David Perdue by a small margin. While the race remains too close to call, Sterling said Wednesday that he expects Ossoff to prevail by a margin of greater than 0.5%, which would prevent Perdue from requesting a recount.
Should Ossoff prevail, Democrats would control the Senate, thanks in part to Rev. Raphael Warnock’s win over Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler on Tuesday in a separate runoff in Georgia. With a win by Ossoff, Democrats would hold a 50-50 tie in Senate seats but would have an advantage due to the tie breaking vote being held by vice president-elect Kamala Harris.