Georgia state election official Gabriel Sterling tore into Donald Trump’s election fraud claims a day after the explosive leak of Trump demanding his boss ‘find’ 11,780 votes to make Trump the winner.
Sterling called a press conference Georgia on the eve of critical statewide elections there – telling the media there was ‘not a whit’ of truth to claims that ballot machines ‘flipped’ votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.
Sterling issued a furious point-by-point take down of claims and conspiracy theories put forward by Trump and his allies – blasting ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation.’
With rapid-fire speech, Sterling spelled out the redundant cross-checks and safeguards in the state’s election systems – and ridiculed several of Trump’s claims.
‘There is no shredding of ballots going on. That’s not real. It’s not happening,’ he said, after Trump raised the prospect on his hour-long call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
He mocked a claim put forward by Trump – a charge Trump leveled with such generality it drew mockery online.
‘This is one I don’t fully understand. No one is changing parts or pieces out of Dominion voting machines. That’s not a real – I don’t even know what that means. It’s not a real thing,’ he said.
Trump had asked on the Saturday call: ‘But have they moved the inner parts of the machines and replaced them with other parts?’
Election lawyer Brian Germany responded simply on the call: ‘No.’
Sterling revealed his frustration at Trump repeating conspiracy theories about alleged fraud in the count at the State Farm Arena – claims his office has repeatedly debunked.
‘I will admit when I listened to the audio of the phone call and the president brought that up again and I heard him on radio ad again today I wanted so scream … I screamed in my car at the radio talking about this because this has been thoroughly debunked,’ he said.
Describing the scene, he said: ‘There are monitors in the room. There is press in the room. They take the ballots that have been opened, and put them in carrier trays and put them in there, and then put through the boxes, put the lid on, the lid matches the box,’ he said, describing a part of the video Trump lawyers have said showed potentially nefarious activity.
Sterling fielded a question about why his office taped the hour-long call – which has prompted officials in Georgia and Washington, D.C. to call for a criminal investigation of the president.
‘I think given the environment we’re in right now and political situation that we’re in, and the history of the president, knowing that he sometimes doesn’t necessarily characterize things that they might have actually occurred, it was kind of an abundance of caution,’ he said.
I’m sure the president’s side recorded it too so they might have been the ones that leaked part of that as well,’ he said.
Sterling ridiculed the claim that Dominion Voting Systems machines were hacked as a ‘fantastical thing.’
He noted that ballot marking devices and scanners aren’t connected to the internet – and that his team was not even asked to attend a state Senate hearing where Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and witnesses raised allegations of fraud.
Even as he debunked Trump’s fraud claims, Sterling pleaded with residents to vote in two runoff elections Tuesday.
Democrats turned out in considerable numbers for early voting.
‘Everybody’s vote is going to count. Everybody’s vote did count,’ he said.