Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is insisting former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams tricked Republican election officials into helping President-elect Joe Biden win.
“Stacey Abrams conned the Republican leadership in Georgia into a consent decree that basically adulterated the signature verification system so that you’re comparing the ballot signature to the application signature,” Graham said during his appearance on The Mike Gallagher Show Wednesday.
He continued, “They’re the same person who did the fraud. You should be comparing the ballot signature, the envelope signature on the ballot, to a signature that existed before the application was made. She changed that.”
Watch his remarks below:
The Democratic Party filed a lawsuit, which led to the consent decree, claiming minorities were disproportionately affected when their ballots had been rejected.
Trump tweeted his frustration with the decree following the election.
“The Consent Decree signed by the Georgia Secretary of State, with the approval of Governor [Brian Kemp], at the urging of [Stacey Abrams], makes it impossible to check and match signatures on ballots and envelopes, etc. They knew they were going to cheat. Must expose real signatures!” Trump wrote.
The Consent Decree signed by the Georgia Secretary of State, with the approval of Governor @BrianKempGA, at the urging of @staceyabrams, makes it impossible to check & match signatures on ballots and envelopes, etc. They knew they were going to cheat. Must expose real signatures!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 14, 2020
According to an Associated Press fact check, “There is nothing in the consent decree that prevents Georgia election clerks from scrutinizing signatures. The legal settlement signed in March addresses accusations about a lack of statewide standards for judging signatures on absentee ballot envelopes.”
Abrams received widespread praise for her efforts to help get Biden elected, as IJR previously reported.
The last time Georgia voted for a Democratic president was in 1992.
Forbes Magazine listed Abrams among its list of the 100 “most powerful women” of 2020, as IJR previously reported.
“In a year marked by mass protests and political unrest around the world, few people deftly used their power quite like Fair Fight founder and voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams,” the magazine wrote.
It added, “By working to help register some 800,000 people to vote in Georgia, the former state representative helped a Democratic presidential nominee win her state for the first time in 28 years. Her work is not done–she said she gave herself ’17 minutes’ of celebration before turning her focus to the critical Georgia Senate runoff elections in January.”