Donald Trump puts Republican Georgia Senate loser Doug Collins in charge of his recount in the state in a desperate bid to overturn Joe Biden’s 10,000 majority
- Republican Georgia Representative Doug Collins was put in charge of the ballot recount effort in his home state
- ‘[W]e are confident we will find evidence of improperly harvested ballots and other irregularities that will prove that President Trump won Georgia fairly’
- The recount is part of Donald Trump’s efforts in many states to prove the presidential election was ‘rigged’ and ‘stolen’
- Collins lost his Senate bid in Georgia to incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock
- Loeffler and Warnock will face-off in a runoff election on January 5
Donald Trump announced Sunday evening that he is putting Representative Doug Collins in charge of the effort to recount ballots in Georgia after Joe Biden became the projected winner there by only 10,000 votes.
‘During the coming recount, we are confident we will find evidence of improperly harvested ballots and other irregularities that will prove that President Trump won Georgia fairly again on his way to re-election as President,’ Collins said in a statement released by Trump’s campaign team on Sunday. ‘Georgians deserve a free and open process, and they will get one.’
The recount comes as part of a concerted effort from Trump to show that the election was ‘rigged’ and ‘stolen’ by Democrats.
‘Republicans stand by the ideal that every eligible voter should be able to vote legally and have it be counted,’ Collin said.
The 16 Electoral College votes in Georgia, a state that went red in 2016 by 5 percentage points, were projected for Biden.
GOP Georgia Representative Doug Collins was put in charge of the recount effort in his home state as President Donald Trump launches efforts in several states to prove the election was ‘rigged’ and ‘stolen’
‘During the coming recount, we are confident we will find evidence of improperly harvested ballots and other irregularities that will prove that President Trump won Georgia fairly again on his way to re-election as President,’ Collins said in a statement released Sunday
Georgia was project for Biden, even though he is only around 10,000 votes ahead of Trump as canvassing in the state continues
With 99 per cent reporting their vote tabulations, 49.5 per cent were counted for Biden and 49.3 per cent for Trump – a mere 0.2 per cent margin or 10,353 votes.
Georgia has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992.
The recount will not start until canvassing has concluded across the state.
Collins, who is a U.S. representative for Georgia’s 9th District, lost his Senate bid in the Peach State on Tuesday against fellow Republican Kelly Loeffler and Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock.
Loeffler, the incumbent senator in that race, earned 29.5 per cent of the vote to Warnock’s 32.9 per cent – and Collins earned 20 per cent. Neither Loeffler nor Warnock earned the 50 per cent threshold needed to outright win, instead forcing a runoff election, which will be held January 5.
As Collins prepares to vacate his House seat by January, he will champion recounting efforts in his home state as the president continues to lament there were fishy circumstances surrounding Biden’s last-minute pull ahead.
‘We are concerned about the lack of transparency in the tabulation process, especially given the reports of irregularities and improper ballot harvesting in Georgia,’ Matt Morgan, Trump’s 2020 general counsel, said in the statement announcing Collins as the lead of that effort.
‘No matter what the media tells you, this is NOT over,’ he said on Twitter Saturday. ‘It’s not over until every LEGAL vote is counted. This is America. We the PEOPLE decide who our next President is. NOT the media’
‘In order for Americans to have full faith and confidence in our elections, every legal vote must be counted and every illegal or fraudulent vote must be excluded,’ Morgan continued. ‘We look forward to guaranteeing that our elections are safe and secure, just as we look forward to President Trump winning Georgia.’
Potentially in preparation for this role, Collins tweeted Saturday that the election was not over ‘until every legal vote is counted’ as media outlets called the election for Biden.
‘No matter what the media tells you, this is NOT over,’ the staunch Trump ally posted as people took to the streets in celebration of Biden’s projected victory. ‘It’s not over until every LEGAL vote is counted. This is America. We the PEOPLE decide who our next President is. NOT the media.’