By Mimi Nguyen Ly
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) announced on Monday that she will object to Electoral College votes when lawmakers gather for a joint session in Congress on Jan. 6.
“Elections are the bedrock of our democracy and the American people deserve to be 100% confident in our election system and its outcomes. But right now, tens of millions of Americans have real concerns about the way in which the November Presidential election was conducted—and I share their concerns,” she said in a statement.
“The American people deserve a platform in Congress, permitted under the Constitution, to have election issues presented so that they can be addressed,” she added. “That’s why, on January 6th, I will vote to give President Trump and the American people the fair hearing they deserve and support the objection to the Electoral College certification process.”
Loeffler noted that she has introduced legislation she’s seeking to pass in the Senate to establish a commission to investigate election irregularities and recommend measures to ensure election integrity.
“We must restore trust, confidence and integrity in our election system,” Loeffler said.
Loeffler joins another 12 senators and senators-elect to plan to object to Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) this week was the first senator to announce he would object, later followed by 11 more GOP senators: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.), as well as Sens.-elect Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).
Loeffler’s public statement comes after the Trump campaign responded to a full audio recording that The Washington Post released on Jan. 3 of a call in which President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger spoke about alleged election irregularities in the state.
Jason Miller, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, wrote in a Twitter post on Jan. 3 that the full recording shows that “[Trump] is spot-on in his criticisms of the terrible job Raffensperger did, all of the officials running Georgia’s elections are trash, and [the president] won the state.”
The full transcript of the call showed Trump sharing a list of claims of election fraud, including double voting, dead people voting, and Trump votes being shredded, along with other allegations of “cheating” and “corruption” that the president said denied him a win in Georgia.
Raffensperger and his lawyer countered Trump’s claims during the call by generally asserting that the issues raised by the president were either inaccurate or have been probed and shown to be untrue. When asked to provide public access to the state’s voting data, Raffensperger’s lawyer said that they could not do so due to legal restrictions.
Raffensperger and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp have previously said they believe that elections in Georgia are reliable, despite lawsuits filed in the state by the Trump campaign and other third parties that allege a wide range of voting irregularities, which witnesses suggest put the results of the election in doubt due to Biden’s razor-edge lead of 11,779 votes (0.24 percent).
More evidence of irregularities emerged in late November and early December, including a video revealing concerns over counting processes at the State Farm Arena’s vote-tabulation center in Atlanta; a video where an election official explains how Dominion Voting Systems’ software allows the adding or changing of votes; and the submission of evidence of more than 21,000 election anomalies and irregularities to Georgia officials.
The Epoch Times has yet to declare a winner of the 2020 presidential election.
The totals in Georgia currently stand at 2,474,507 for Biden and 2,461,837 votes for President Donald Trump. Libertarian Jo Jorgensen received 62,138 votes.
Loeffler’s statement also comes just hours before voting for the Georgia Senate runoff elections closes on Tuesday. She and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) are facing Democrat challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively. The election will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Republicans have secured 50 Senate seats and Democrats have secured 48 Senate seats, which includes two independent senators who caucus with Democrats. Republicans need to win just one race to claim the majority and control of the Senate, while Democrats would need to win both races, and require Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) to cast tie-breaking votes, if she takes office on Jan. 20.
Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting implementation systems manager, said on Monday that a record over 3 million people have cast early votes ahead of the runoff races.
Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.
