WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump, in an extraordinary phone call, pleaded with election officials in the southern U.S. state of Georgia to find him enough votes to overturn his pivotal loss there to President-elect Joe Biden.
“So, look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state,” Trump told the state’s top elections official, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in a recording obtained by The Washington Post and published Sunday afternoon, VOA reported.
In an hour-long call, Trump assailed Raffensperger and sometimes flattered him and his office’s general counsel, Ryan Germany, the report said.
The president disputed the accuracy of three separate vote counts in Georgia that showed Biden was the first Democratic presidential contender to capture the state since 1992, VOA said.
On Sunday, Trump said on Twitter, “I spoke to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger yesterday about Fulton County and voter fraud in Georgia. He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!”
In the United States’ indirect form of democracy, Biden, by winning the popular vote in the state, won all 16 of Georgia’s electoral votes en route to a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College.
On Wednesday, a joint session of Congress with Vice President Mike Pence presiding will meet. At least a dozen Republican U.S. senators have said they will join an unknown number of House Republican colleagues in objecting to the certification of Electoral College votes for Biden.
(VOA)
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