Election investigators in Georgia found just four absentee ballots that had been cast in the 2020 election on behalf of voters who had died, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said on Monday.
The finding further undermines former President Trump’s baseless claim that ballots from some 5,000 deceased voters were cast in the 2020 election in Georgia and contributed to his loss in the state.
Investigators reviewed dozens of allegations that dead people had voted in the election. By the end of the review, they had uncovered only four such instances. In each case, relatives of the deceased had cast the ballot.
The Georgia State Election Board has referred those cases to the state attorney general’s office, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Trump has claimed for more than a year that widespread voter fraud and systemic malfeasance in a handful of states, including Georgia, cost him reelection in 2020. Multiple election audits and reviews have debunked those claims.
Raffensperger, a Republican who has been targeted for criticism by Trump for refusing to help overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory in Georgia, touted the findings of the investigation as further evidence that his state’s elections were securely run.
He noted that, despite Trump’s claims, no evidence has surfaced that the former president was robbed of victory, noting that the four cases of dead people voting is far from enough to reverse Trump’s roughly 12,000-vote margin of defeat in Georgia.
“The State Election Board sent a total of 4 cases of dead voters in November 2020 to the Attorney General,” Raffensperger tweeted. “There has yet to be proof of enough fraud to overturn the 2020 elections. We need to look forward, not waste time relitigating the past.”
The state attorney general’s office will review the cases of voting by deceased people. The State Election Board can impose fines of up to $5,000 per violation, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.