Georgia official rages at GOP senators: 'Stop focusing on me' and try 'winning' instead

Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger unleashed on the state’s Republican senators for their latest dishonest smear this week, saying Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have embarrassed themselves with a recent public demands for voter registration data their campaigns have already received.

“Though I’ve told the Republican Party to stop focusing on me and instead direct their energies to winning the Senate runoffs, clearly they haven’t listened,” said Raffensperger said in a press release on Tuesday. “As embarrassing as it is for Sens. Perdue and Loeffler not to know that the data they want is already publicly available from the Secretary of State, it’s even worse that they’re not aware their own campaigns already have the data they’re looking for.” He urged them to “call their offices and get their campaigns in order.”

He was referring to a joint statement issued by Loeffler and Perdue on Monday, accusing him of not doing his job. “It’s been one week since the voter registration deadline passed and the Secretary of State has failed to compile and release a final list of newly registered voters,” they alleged. “Georgians demand transparency, accountability, and accuracy in our elections process — and the Secretary of State is failing to provide it in a timely manner.”

But Raffensperger noted in his response that the lack of a “final list” is because “counties continue to add validly registered voters who registered by the December 7 deadline” and that the voter files — updated daily — are available online for $250.

Further, both the campaigns and the National Republican Senate Committee already have that information.

“The National Republican Committee (NRSC) requested and received copies of the newly registered Georgia voters every day and the NRSC confirmed that it shared that public data with the Perdue and Loeffler senate campaigns,” he said.

Raffensperger points out that the national party had confirmed that the Loeffler and Perdue campaigns have the latest information, quoting a National Republican Senatorial Committee representative as saying, “They have those lists.”

Neither campaign immediately responded to inquiries for this story.

Perdue, a first-term incumbent seeking a second six-year term, failed to win a majority last month and will thus face Democrat Jon Ossoff in a Jan. 5 runoff.

Loeffler, who was appointed late last year to temporarily fill a vacancy, came in second in last month’s special election for the remaining two years of former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s (R) unexpired term. Since no candidate got a majority in that race either, Loeffler will face the first-place finisher — Democrat Raphael Warnock — in a runoff on the same day.

Since President-elect Joe Biden carried Georgia by about 12,000 votes on Election Day, Loeffler and Perdue have repeatedly attacked Raffensperger for not doing enough to rig the state for Donald Trump. Echoing Trump’s false attacks, they demanded Raffensperger resign last month over unspecified “mismanagement and lack of transparency.”

“There have been too many failures in Georgia elections this year and the most recent election has shined a national light on the problems,” the duo baselessly claimed.

Raffensperger dismissed this demand at the time, calling it “laughable” and “not going to happen.”

He and his wife subsequently received multiple death threats from angry Republicans via social media.

Both Senate runoffs are expected to be close. If Democrats win both races, they will narrowly control a majority in the U.S. Senate after Jan. 20. Otherwise, Republicans will likely maintain their Senate majority for the next two years.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.