Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is by now used to playing the straight man in the dark comedy that is Donald Trump and his supporters’ endless hijacking of his state’s election administration to spread MAGA conspiracy theories. But he was forced to dispel yet another mind boggling myth this week, propagated by none other than his state’s own conspiracy-theory congresswoman, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
A recent Atlanta Journal Constitution poll found that Trump has a slight edge over Vice President Kamala Harris in the battleground state, which is experiencing record-high early voting turnout. But Greene has been hard at work the past week elevating a minor error in a county she represents to allege an all-out, anti-Trump, Dominion voting machine-based conspiracy theory.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week, Greene posted a screenshot from someone on Facebook, claiming that a voter in Whitfield County, Georgia had a different bubble filled in on the printed-out version of their ballot than the bubble they filled in while voting on a machine. In the tweet she claimed without evidence that it was an issue with the Dominion voting machine “flipping” votes — harkening back to a conspiracy theory pushed by Greene, Trump and their allies in 2020 as they fought desperately to overturn the results of the election in key states that Trump lost.
🚨 CHECK YOUR BALLOTS GEORGIA!
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) October 18, 2024
Reports from Whitfield County, GA that Dominion machines are flipping votes.
This is exactly the kind of fraud we saw in 2020 and it cannot be tolerated.
I will be working to investigate this issue and ensure the integrity of our elections in… https://t.co/1rYyQAhE6E pic.twitter.com/0yaBBINPC3
While county officials worked to shut down the rumor on Facebook, explaining that the “issue was quickly resolved while the voter was still on-site,” Greene took to Alex Jones’ extremist cesspool of a talk show to give a larger platform to the non-issue.
“That’s extremely concerning,” she told Jones after recounting an unverified and seemingly inaccurate version of events. “It sounds similar to what we heard in 2020,” she continued, referencing the kind of Dominion voting machine lies that led to defamation suits against Fox News and key Trump allies, and major settlements for the voting equipment company.
County and state officials later debunked Greene’s claims, saying the error was in fact the result of a mistake that was made by the actual voter, not a machine or printing error. Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation” over the weekend, Raffensperger explained the situation that Greene helped blow out of proportion and said that his office would be working overtime to ensure that conspiracy theories about the election administration system in his state aren’t given oxygen — like they were in 2020.
“What happened with Whitfield County was the lady thought she had pressed a certain, you know, selection, and then when she printed out the ballot, she saw that, and so then she made them aware of it, and it got corrected.
“And then it got blown out of proportion by people that like to use, you know, Twitter and other forms of social media. But we’re going to respond quickly to these sorts of things in 2024 because it’s not supported by the facts. The equipment’s working. We’ve done all sorts of audits, you know, since the last election, and coming up to this election.
… “I’m going to make sure that whoever wins this race, that is what gets certified. I’m going to follow the law and follow the Constitution. I’m going to do my job, and that’s what the people of Georgia have elected me to do. I represent the voters of Georgia.”
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So “the voter pushed the wrong button” turns into “the machine flipped the vote!”? Only in MAGAland could someone make a mistake and be innocent of the consequences. Really, their lying is way out of hand at this point, it sure would be nice if the liars were held accountable.
Interesting that Harris is going to Texas…they must think a stop there will help Allred, or just trying to make a dent in the media noise the way Trump tried in CA and in NY this week. I don’t think that Harris just wants to make news though, she’s running a focused campaign, so they must really think it does some good somehow to have an event in TX and get some fired up voters out there for it. It’s unlikely that TX will flip, but Allred could pull out a win which is almost as important as Harris winning, if the Senate goes Republican it’s not a good thing.
Exactly. Campaigning in Texas says three things. One, that Harris is on the offense, two that Harris wants to support Democrats down ballot, and three that all Americans are important.
I do not find this funny, nor am I making light of this. But notable.
From CNN:
Political fundraisers WinRed and ActBlue are taking millions of dollars in donations from elderly dementia patients to fuel their campaigns
Ultimately, some of these elderly, vulnerable consumers have unwittingly given away six-figure sums – most often to Republican candidates – making them among the country’s largest grassroots political donors.
There’s at least 5 million women in Texas primed to vote and they ain’t thinking gop.