Georgia GOP lawmakers want to use messy Arizona 'audit' as model for their state

Georgia state Sen. Brandon Beach, a Republican, said on Friday that the Georgia Legislature should hold a special session to do a “forensic audit” of the results of the 2020 presidential election.

He said that he agrees that the audit currently underway in Arizona could serve as a model, telling host John Fredericks of the conservative Real America’s Voice network, “We need to have a whole delegation go out there to see what they’re doing out in Arizona, they’re being very proactive.”

Beach said that in supporting an audit he was following the lead of fellow state Sen. Burt Jones, who has falsely claimed that fraudulent votes were counted in Fulton County, Georgia.

Asked if the Georgia Senate had the ability to force an audit of all votes cast in Georgia, Beach said, “We don’t have the power ’cause we’re not gonna get 29 senators to sign a petition to call for a special session, but I do think if the evidence shows what we think it will show, I think it will force Gov. [Brian] Kemp to consider a special session to get down to the truth and get down to what happened.”

Beach said an investigation was needed to determine whether ballots cast in the election were “real or counterfeit.”

The Arizona audit, the state’s third, came after pressure from Republican state senators and is being conducted by a company owned by a pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theorist who has been involved in efforts to overturn the result of the election.

Election experts have criticized the operation as a mess of mismanagement and conspiracy theorizing that has been designed to sow doubt about President Joe Biden’s historic win in the state.

Georgia, which Biden won after decades in which the states’ voters chose Republican presidential candidates, had its 2020 election results recounted several times in a process overseen by Republican election officials and a Republican governor.

Those recounts led to the state twice verifying the final election results and certifying the race in favor of Biden.

Beach was involved in previous efforts to disqualify millions of votes in the election.

In January, Beach was one of a number of Republican Georgia state senators who signed a letter to Vice President Mike Pence asking him to delay the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote results. The letter said the delay was “to allow for further investigation of fraud, irregularities, and misconduct” and cited as evidence an already debunked video purportedly showing election workers involved in unethical behavior.

Beach was stripped by the GOP leadership of his position as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee several days later.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.