Georgia's secretary of state says Lindsey Graham suggested throwing out certain ballots

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-election-brad-raffensperger-lindsey-graham-throw-out-ballots/

 

By Melissa Quinn CBS News November 17, 2020, 11:12 AM

Last Updated Nov 17, 2020 1:46 PM EST

 

 Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, of indicating he should throw out legally cast ballots, a suggestion that comes as President Trump trails President-elect Joe Biden by more than 14,000 votes in the Peach State.

In an interview with "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday, Raffensperger detailed a phone call he had with Graham, one of Mr. Trump's closest allies on Capitol Hill, during which he said the senator suggested absentee ballots from counties with high rates of nonmatching signatures be disqualified.

"When Senator Graham called, I just assumed that he was calling about the two runoffs for the senators, so I called him back," Raffensperger said. "During our discussion, he asked if ballots could be matched back to the envelope — the absentee ballots could be matched back to the envelope. I explained our process, after it went through two sets of signature match, at that point they were separated. But then Senator Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes and then throw out the ballots for counties who have the highest frequency error of signatures. I tried to help explain that because we did signature match, you couldn't tie the signatures back anymore to those ballots."

Raffensperger told "CBS This Morning" that he spoke with his legal counsel about Graham's comments and "decided the best action was not to get back and re-engage."

"When I went down this other path, I think the best thing was just to disengage and move forward," he said. "We want to make sure that every legal vote counts and every illegal vote doesn't count."

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