The Donald Trump election campaign’s efforts to show that thousands of ballots were cast in the name of dead people in the pivotal state of Georgia during the 2020 election resulted in a research report that in fact contradicted Trump’s claims that widespread election fraud cost him the presidency, according to a report on Friday.
Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia in 2020 was key and the Trump team’s own information went against Trump’s subsequent denial of the legitimate win by his opponent, according to the Washington Post.
Prosecutors investigating Trump’s role in the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 by his supporters attempting to overturn the certification by Congress of Biden’s victory obtained the campaign research, the Washington Post reported.
Trump’s insistence that thousands of ballots came from dead people became especially infamous following revelations that he had urged the Georgia secretary of state, Republican Brad Raffensperger, to “find” enough votes so he would win, during a 2 January 2021 call. The Trump-commissioned study refuting this very claim “was dated one day prior” to this call, per the Post.
“Dead people”, Trump nevertheless remarked during the call. “So dead people voted, and I think the number is close to 5,000 people. And they went to obituaries. They went to all sorts of methods to come up with an accurate number, and a minimum is close to about 5,000 voters.”
Raffensperger pushed back, saying: “The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong.” Trump reportedly insisted: “In one state, we have a tremendous amount of dead people. So I don’t know – I’m sure we do in Georgia, too. I’m sure we do in Georgia, too.”
Raffensperger’s comments were bolstered by an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report in December 2021 that Georgia authorities confirmed a mere four cases of ballots cast in the name of dead people, with every instance involving a ballot cast by the relative of a deceased person. Georgia prosecutors are investigating whether Trump and his allies broke the law in their efforts to reverse election results.
Trump also made the unsubstantiated claim that “a tremendous number of dead people” cast ballots in Michigan. “I think it was … 18,000. Some unbelievably high number, much higher than yours, you were in the 4-5,000 category.”
The Trump campaign-commissioned report said analysts had “high confidence” there were only nine deceased voters in Fulton county, Georgia. The researchers also said they believed the “potential statewide exposure” of dead voters was 23, the newspaper said.
The research also contradicted Trump’s claims that some 1,500 ballots came from dead voters and that over 42,000 voted twice in Nevada. The analysis expressed “high confidence” that just 12 deceased-voter ballots were submitted in Clark county, Nevada; they said the number of possible double voters ranged from 45 to just over 9,000.
While the report does not outright state that Biden won the election, the analysis also said they did not have evidence to substantiate fraud claims about five decisive states’ results. “This result was not unexpected,” the analysis reportedly said. “Our analysis of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada concluded that in each state the final tabulated result was mathematically possible given absentee request rates.”
