‘Republicans are angry’: Trump demands Georgia audit mail-in ballot signatures, says it will show ‘goldmine’ of fraud

US President Donald Trump has urged the ‘hapless’ Georgia governor to audit signatures on mail-in ballots, as his campaign claims up to 45,000 such votes were cast illegally, delivering the state to Democrat candidate Joe Biden.

Governor Brian Kemp should use his emergency powers to overrule the “obstinate” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and do a signature match on absentee ballot envelopes, Trump tweeted on Monday.

“It will be a ‘goldmine’ of fraud, and we will easily WIN the state,” the president added. 

Trump also suggested that Georgia “may just find that there are many more ballots than there are envelopes.”

“Georgia Republicans are angry, all Republicans are angry. Get it done!” he tweeted.

This was apparently a reference to Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue (R-Georgia), who are facing a run-off election against Democrat challengers in January. They have seconded Trump’s calls for auditing mail-in ballots and even called for Raffensperger's resignation.

The Georgia secretary of state blamed “dishonest actors” who were spreading "massive amounts of misinformation” about the election and “misleading the president.” The state is investigating “credible claims of illegal voting” but has only 23 investigators to deal with 250 open cases from the current year, Raffensperger told reporters on Monday.

Kemp had certified the state’s election results for Biden on November 20, but “encouraged” Raffensperger to conduct a “sample” mail-in ballot audit, which the official has not done so far. 

A recount demanded by Trump’s campaign had stalled after a Dominion Voting Systems server reportedly crashed in Fulton County, a Democrat stronghold that includes much of Atlanta. Officials said it would resume on Monday.

The president’s campaign, however, insists that simple recounts are meaningless without an audit of mail-in ballots. On Monday, they sent the fifth written request to Raffensperger to do so, alleging that “between 38,250 and 45,626 illegal votes from the absentee ballots alone” were cast in Georgia. Pre-audit results showed Biden winning the state by 12,670 votes, mostly due to mail-in ballots in urban Democrat counties that were counted after Election Day.

“Until the signatures are matched, the vote count in Georgia is a complete fraud,” said Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. “There is no way of knowing which ballots are honest and which ballots are fraudulent.”

During a Sunday interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump said he was “ashamed” to have endorsed Kemp in his 2018 race. Democrat Stacey Abrams never conceded that election, blaming her loss on alleged “voter suppression.” Her lawsuit led to Georgia agreeing to change the rules on authenticating ballots in March, which have made signature verification difficult and impractical.

The mainstream media have called the November 3 election for Biden, and have treated him as president-elect, while social networks have labeled any and all claims of voter fraud as disputed. However, Trump has refused to concede and filed legal challenges in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania – all of which saw large numbers of mail-in ballots backing Biden.

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