A Georgia election official debunked Trump’s claims of voter fraud, point by point

In a searing information convention on Monday, Gabriel Sterling, a pinnacle election professional in Georgia, systematically debunked President Trump’s fake claims of voter fraud. Again.

“The cause I’m having to face right here these days is due to the fact there are humans in positions of authority and recognize who've stated their votes didn’t count, and it’s now no longer true,” stated Mr. Sterling, a Republican who ultimate month condemned the president’s failure to denounce threats towards election officials, and who become tasked on Monday with responding to the information of a tele cell smartphone call wherein Mr. Trump forced Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffle sparer, to “find” sufficient votes to alternate the final results of the presidential race.

“It’s anti-disinformation Monday,” Mr. Sterling stated. “It’s whack-a-mole once more, it’s Groundhog Day once more, and I’m going to speak approximately matters that I’ve mentioned again and again for 2 months. I’m going to do it once more one ultimate time. I hope.”

Here is a rundown of the fake claims approximately Georgia’s vote-counting that Mr. Trump and his legal professionals made on the decision and in different venues, and Mr. Sterling’s motives of what truly happened.

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That, amid the disruption resulting from a damaged water important at a vote-counting middle in Fulton County, election employees added in “suitcases or trunks” of ballots.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: Late with inside the evening, after the water important damage have been fixed, election employees organized to move domestic for the night time and observed popular techniques to keep ballots securely: setting them in boxes and affixing numbered seals. But while Mr. Raffle sparer discovered out that they have been final up shop, he ordered them to retain counting via the night time — so the employees retrieved the boxes and resumed counting ballots

All of that is on video photos that the secretary of state’s office published publicly.

“This is what’s absolutely frustrating: The president’s felony group had the complete tape,” Mr. Sterling said. “They watched the complete tape. They deliberately misled the State Senate, the citizens and the humans of America approximately this.”

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That employees scanned a few batches of ballots a couple of times.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: When a scanning gadget encounters a trouble, it stops, however some ballots get via at the same time as its stopping. When that happens, employees take the ballots and test them once more so they’re counted properly. This is fashionable procedure, and the ballots aren’t counted twice — and in the event that they were, the hand recount Georgia conducted could have proven it.

“That audit confirmed that there has been no trouble with the gadget scanning,” Mr. Sterling said. “If any person took a stack of ballots and scanned them a couple of times, you'll have plenty of votes without a corresponding ballots.”

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That tens of lots of ineligible electorate solid ballots.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: The real range of ballots solid via way of means of ineligible electorate is minuscule, and nowhere close to sufficient to alternate the final results of the election.

Mr. Sterling additionally addressed extra precise claims approximately ineligible electorate:

• Mr. Trump stated that lots of human beings voted no matter now no longer being registered to vote. This is impossible, Mr. Sterling stated: “You can’t do it. There cannot be a ballot issued to you, there’s no manner to tie it lower back to you, there’s nowhere for them to have a call to correspond lower back to until they’re registered electorate. So that range is zero.”
• Mr. Trump stated that lots of electorate died earlier than the election. Mr. Sterling stated the secretary of nation’s workplace had discovered most effective who would possibly healthy that description.
• Mr. Trump stated that masses of human beings voted the use of P.O. packing containers instead of a residential address. Mr. Sterling stated that the secretary of nation’s workplace turned into nevertheless investigating, however that everybody it had tested to this point had, in fact, used a right residential address — simply one for a multifamily house or condo building.
• Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign stated that many felons voted. In reality, the use of information from the nation’s corrections and probation departments, the secretary of nation’s workplace recognized most effective seventy four human beings who would possibly healthy that category — and Mr. Sterling stated the very last range could be even decrease as soon as the workplace finished its investigation, due to the fact in lots of instances, the individual would possibly have had their vote casting rights reinstated after finishing a sentence or would possibly in reality have the identical call as a felon.
• Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign stated that tens of lots of human beings more youthful than 18 voted. “The real range is zero,” Mr. Sterling stated, “and the cause we realize this is due to the fact the dates are at the voter registration. There are 4 instances — 4 — wherein human beings asked their absentee ballot earlier than they became 18, however they became 18 via way of means of Election Day. That way that may be a legally solid ballot.”
• Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign stated that masses of electorate solid ballots in states. Mr. Sterling stated that officers have been nevertheless investigating, however that if such a instances have been confirmed, it'd be “handfuls,” and nowhere close to sufficient to alternate the final results.

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That machines flipped votes, counting Trump ballots as Biden ones.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: If this had happened, Mr. Sterling stated, the hand recount could have proven it, and it did now no longer display something of the sort.

Discussing allegations of hacking, he brought that ballot machines and scanners aren’t related to the internet. “Neither one has modems,” Mr. Sterling stated. “It’s very tough to hack matters without modems.”

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That election officers did now no longer nicely affirm signatures for mail-in ballots.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: The secretary of nation’s workplace added in signature experts, who tested extra than 15,000 mail-in ballot envelopes. They discovered ability troubles with most effective, and upon investigation, each ballots became out to be legitimate.

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That, as compared with preceding election cycles, Georgia rejected a suspiciously low range of mail-in ballots.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: The lower in rejections is because of a these days surpassed regulation that offers Georgians a risk to accurate troubles, consisting of a rejected signature, with their ballots. Both events had groups roaming the nation and contacting electorate whose ballots have been liable to rejection, however Mr. Sterling stated the Democrats have been in reality extra organized for the task.

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That election officers shredded ballots.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: “There isn’t any shredding of ballots going on,” Mr. Sterling stated with clean annoyance. “That’s now no longer real. It’s now no longer happening.”

Workers did shred secrecy envelopes: the clean envelopes that shield the privateers of a voter’s absentee poll and pass interior an outer envelope. It’s the outer envelope that electorate need to sign, and election officers have saved the ones outer envelopes as required with the aid of using law. The secrecy envelopes, however, “haven't any evidentiary value,” Mr. Sterling said, due to the fact with the aid of using definition they haven't any figuring out records on them.

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That personnel of Dominion Voting Systems “moved the internal components” of vote casting machines “and changed them with different components.”

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: “No one is converting components or portions out of Dominion vote casting machines. That’s now no longer real. I don’t even realize what that means.”

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That officers improperly counted “pristine” ballots — that means ballots that weren’t folded, indicating that they hadn’t arrived in an envelope.

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: “Pristine” ballots aren’t unusual, Mr. Sterling said. For instance, many army and remote places electorate obtain digital ballots that they print out, entire and mail back. But those published ballots aren’t the proper length for scanners, so election employees have a trendy system for shifting the votes to scan able ballots. A poll that receives broken and can’t be scanned can be transferred with inside the identical way.

TRUMP’S CLAIM: That Mr. Raffle sparer is compromised due to the fact he has a brother who works for a Chinese generation company. (Mr. Trump turned into echoing a conspiracy principle approximately an unrelated guy who occurs to be named Ron Raffle sparer.)

STERLING’S EXPLANATION: Mr. Raffen sperger doesn’t have a brother named Ron.