A Trump supporter running to replace Georgia’s governor in the state’s Republican primary came out in favor of an Arizona-style audit of Georgia’s 2020 election results on Wednesday.
State Rep. Vernon Jones (R) vowed that he would call for an audit should he win the governor’s mansion next year in a statement first reported by CNN.
“Georgians still have questions about irregularities found in the 2020 election and they deserve answers,” he said, according to the network. “We must get to the bottom of all of this and other irregularities to restore trust in our election process. If Mr. Kemp refuses to demand an audit, then I will when I am elected to replace him.”
Jones is not yet officially endorsed by Trump, but his willingness to support the former president’s unproven claims about widespread election fraud in 2020 could easily change that. Georgia’s governor, Republican Brian Kemp, has refused to endorse such calls, and the state’s GOP secretary of state, Brian Raffensperger, also emerged as a top critic of the former president’s false claims in the days after the election.
Trump recently spoke favorably about audit efforts in Arizona, where the GOP-led state Senate is conducting a recount of Maricopa County’s votes using a third-party firm. That effort has been widely mocked as a fishing expedition, and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, also led by Republicans, this week rejected any further cooperation with the state Senate and threatened a legal fight over the issue.
“Let’s see what they find. I wouldn’t be surprised if they found thousands and thousands and thousands of votes,” Trump told his supporters at Mar-a-Lago just a few weeks ago.
“After that we’ll watch Pennsylvania, and you watch Georgia, then you’re going to watch Michigan and Wisconsin, and you’re watching New Hampshire,” he added at the time.