Verification of the facts: true.
Hayes, backed by former President Donald Trump, focused his campaign on false allegations of the 2020 election – including the claim that Trump would have won Georgia if the election had been “fair.” And Hice has repeatedly made false allegations about Rafensperger’s actions as head of the Georgian election.
Here’s a look at some of the things Hayes said during Monday’s debate. Hice’s campaign did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Heath told Rafensperger, “You created the collection of ballots in Georgia.” He later reiterated: “The collection of ballots was created in the state of Georgia because of Brad Rafensperger.”
Facts first: Hayes’ statement is untrue. Rafensperger did not set up a ballot collection in Georgia. In fact, less than three months after Rafensperger became secretary of state in 2019, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law banning the collection of ballots in Georgia. “Collection of ballots” can be described more neutrally as “collection of ballots”. In general, the phrase refers to the practice of organizations or activists to collect completed absentee ballots and submit them for counting – instead of voters sending their own ballots or having a family member or friend submit them. The 2019 law gave Georgia voters two main options: “in person” to send or deliver their absent ballots, or ballots to be sent or delivered by someone they live with or by a family member. In other words, the law prohibits third parties from collecting and submitting ballots to strangers. At least it is possible that there was some collection of ballots in Georgia in the 2020 elections; Rafensperger’s office is investigating allegations made by the right-wing group. But even if an illegal harvest took place, it would not mean that Rafensperger “created the collection of ballots in Georgia.” (This also does not mean that actual ballots delivered by ballot collectors are fraudulent or invalid.)
Rafensperger and Stacey Abrams, part 1
Hayes claims that Rafensperger “made deals with Stacey Abrams” – the Democratic governor’s candidate and former minority leader in the House of Representatives – “and opened the door wide for electoral fraud in this state in every way possible.” Heath referred to Rafensperger’s alleged “deal” with Abrams at other times in the debate.
Facts first: Hayes’ claims are untrue. Rafensperger did not make a deal with Abrams. If Hice had in mind, as it has done in the past, a March 2020 legal agreement between Raffensperger and Democratic organizations on the process of verifying the state’s signatures for absent voters, Abrams was not involved in that agreement – as one of the participants in the debate, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Mark Neisse told Hice. And there is no reason to claim that this legal agreement or anything else that Rafensperger has made “opens the door wide for electoral fraud in this state in any way.” . It is possible that a small part of the ballots in Georgia were fraudulent, but there is no evidence of voter fraud even close enough to change the result in the state, which Joe Biden won with 11,779 votes. And there is no evidence that the 2020 agreement on signature verification has led to any widespread fraud. An audit of the signatures of a sample of more than 15,000 envelopes with missing ballots in Cobb County, a large county in the Atlanta region won by Biden, found zero fake ballots.
Signature verification
When Niesse, a participant in the debate, pressured Hice to explain how the agreement allegedly weakened the verification of absent ballots, Hice insisted: “Well, that weakens the signature verification. This made it much more difficult to do. In the end, you had to inform the voter yourself. “
Facts first: This is misleading. Even before the dispute settlement agreement, Georgia’s Republican election law in 2019 required counties to promptly notify voters of issues to be removed from their ballots, such as missing or inconsistent signatures, and to give voters a chance to correct these problems. The agreement sets out specific deadlines for notifying voters, rather than relying on the vague word “timely” and sets out the methods by which notifications must be made. As we noted before Hice, the percentage of absentee ballots rejected over Signature Problems in the 2020 general elections after the settlement agreement was almost identical to the percentage of midterm elections in 2018 before the settlement agreement.
Rafensperger and Stacey Abrams, part 2
Heath condemned Rafensperger’s decision to send an absentee ballot form to each of Georgia’s active registered voters during the party’s primary elections in 2020 (Rafensperger, like officials in other states, sent these forms because of the Covid-19 pandemic). He did not send unsolicited forms of request to vote during the 2020 general elections)
Hayes said: “We had a conference call, the Georgian delegation, with Brad urging him not to send absentee ballots to everyone in our voter registration dossier. He did it anyway. In fact, the deal was already made with Stacey Abrams before that call ever took place. ”
Facts first: This is not true. Again, Rafensperger did not make a deal with Abrams. And Rafensperger’s agreement with the Democratic Party had nothing to do with his decision to send out absentee ballot forms during the primary election. In fact, the agreement does not say anything about who should be sent the voting form. The agreement concerned in particular the process of reconciling signatures.
Abrams campaign spokesman Seth Bringman said on Monday that Abrams was among the defenders of the right to vote, calling on Rafensperger to send forms to ask voters to vote in Georgia of all ages, not just older voters, as an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report of March 2020 stated that Rafensperger was originally a planner. But Rafensperger’s campaign said Abrams did not participate in or influence Rafensperger’s decision, announced about a week after this news report, to send out voting request forms to voters of all ages; Raffensperger campaign spokesman Lance Dutson said Raffensperger’s office “repelled Stacey Abrams and her liberal allies” on various proposals, as noted by Abrams-founded Fair Fight Action in tweets criticizing Rafensperger at the time.
However, there is no indication that there was any kind of “deal” between Rafensperger and Abrams regarding Rafensperger’s decision.
Absent voting and voter identification
Heath said Rafensperger had opened the door to changes that undermined “electoral integrity”, including “sending out absentee ballots, with virtually no voter identification associated with them.” Hayes added: “These are things that really need to be corrected, which have not been addressed under the current guidance of Brad Rafensperger.”
Facts one: It is not true that Georgia has not “corrected” the issue with the requirement to identify voters for absentee voting or the issue with the Secretary of State, who sends absentee ballot forms. In 2021, Kemp signed a law requiring absent voters to provide a form of identity other than their signature, prohibiting governments and government officials from sending unsolicited forms to request absentee voting. In addition, Raffensperger was not the reason why identification other than a signature had not previously been required for postal voting applications. State law, not Rafensperger’s policy, states that only a signature is required.
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