ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia’s most sensible election official said Tuesday that his workplace had known about 1,000 cases of “possible double vote” in June’s number one election, a crime he is determined to see prosecuted.
These voters mailed ballots, but also voted in person, a challenge that happened in a hundred counties of Georgia, and election officials did not capture them in time to save him the vote count of the time, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said.
“No one has the right to vote twice. Everyone has a voice,” Raffensperger said.
It is not clear without delay whether the final results of the races may have been affected.
The revelation follows a suggestion last week through President Donald Trump that others who vote early by mail show up at their local polling stations on polling day and return their vote if their ballots have not been counted.
The president said in a series of tweets Thursday that the electorate who mailed ballots goes to his polling place to “see if his vote by mail has been tabulated (counted) or not. If this is the case, you will not be able to vote and the email formula has worked properly ».
Election officials quickly warned that this can lead to additional disruptions and long queues on Election Day that are already confusing due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Raffensperger said investigators in his workplace would hand over the findings to the state attorney general and local district attorneys for imaginable prosecution. Double voting is a punishable crime of one to ten years and a fine of up to $100,000, Raffensperger said.
“A dual voter knows exactly what he’s doing, diluting the votes of each and every law-abiding voter,” Raffensperger said.
He stated at a press convention that those 1,000 electorates had voted twice, knowing that they had mailed a poll and still appeared to vote, but when pressured on this point, Raffensperger provided no evidence that the electorate ‘had the goal of playing with him. the system, in addition to mentioning a Long County voter who he said boasted of having voted twice.
Raffensperger had encouraged the electorate to use ballots by mail for number one in June for possible exposure to coronavirus and to decrease the number of other people voting on Election Day. Election officials won a record 1. 6 million postal applications, condemning some county polling stations and causing delays in sending some ballots.
Some 150,000 Georgian voters who were implemented for mail voting in the June primary later showed up to vote in person, Raffensperger said. A thousand of them ended up voting for a moment, and their workplace intends to investigate the case very well, he said.
Raffensperger said his workplace works with county election officials to ensure that there is no double vote in November’s general election.
The formula is designed to save you a double vote, but that depends on humans, he said.
If the electorate requests a vote by mail yet and then shows up to vote with the user on voting day, the electoral formula reports that they have requested a vote by mail. Survey r intends to call the county elections to see if the absentee survey has been won. for that voter.
If the county election workplace declares that a survey has been received in the mail, the user will not be able to vote on the user. If there is no mail record of a survey, the voter can vote on the user and the county election. The workplace intends to cancel the survey request by mail so that the mailed survey is not counted if it arrives.
If the r voter does not call the county election order or cannot touch anyone, or if the county election does not cancel the application by mail, this may result in a double vote.
Statistics show that double voting is rare, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
An Iowa woman pleaded guilty to electoral misconduct in July 2017 after attempting to vote twice in the 2016 election and told police she believed Trump’s claims that the election had been rigged and feared his first ballot to become a vote. for Hillary Clinton.
The New Hampshire government arrested a guy accused of voting twice in the 2016 election in two other calls, his and that of a woguy, reported by local media. for the State Democratic Party.
Studies have shown that voter identity theft is quite rare. In one study, a Loyola Law School professor uncovered 31 cases involving allegations of voter identity theft out of the 1 billion votes cast in US elections between 2000 and 2014. Another study from the Brennan Center for Justice in The New York University School of Law has revealed reports that other people voted twice or voted on behalf of other deceased people was largely the result of clerical errors that advised irregularities while none occurred.
Georgia Democratic Party Executive Director Scott Hogan accused the Secretary of State for Politics.
“Voter fraud remains rare in Georgia, and any involvement undermines our elections,” Hogan said in a statement emailed. Instead, it drives THE GOP’s conspiracy theories and incorrect information as it fights in court to make mail voting less available to voters. .
On Friday, Raffensperger’s workplace appealed an order for a federal ruling on the extension of Georgia’s mail voting deadline for the November election. District Judge Eleanor Ross ordered the state to count all missing ballots carrying the postmark on Election Day and won them before 7 p. m. three days later, instead of counting only the ballots won at the close of voting.
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Associated Press editor Christina A. Cassidy contributed to the report.