Group 'identifies 12,547 illegal votes' in Georgia's 2020 election results, 'exceeds margin of victory in the state.
Attacks on the integrity of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia have been as persistent as head lice, yet they don't seem to stick. A sampling of our fact-checks: 'Suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table and illegally counted.' False. 132,000 ballots 'likely ineligible.' False. Donald Trump says the secretary of state won't let the people recounting ballots check the signatures for fraud. Pants on Fire. Now, more than five months after the election, and after two recounts confirmed that Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Joe Biden, another attack has surfaced. An April 21 article from the Gateway Pundit, a conservative website, carried this headline about what it calls an election integrity organization: 'Elections Integrity Org Identifies 12,547 Illegal Votes Included In Georgia's 2020 Election Results - Exceeds Margin of Victory In the State.' The claim, widely circulated on Facebook and elsewhere online, was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) What the organization, a group of former Trump campaign staff members, posted online merely makes more claims of balloting irregularity in Georgia, without producing data to back the claims. Report lacks data The Gateway Pundit article claims that an April 19 report from an organization called Look Ahead America found 12,547 illegal ballots cast in Georgia, exceeding Biden's margin of victory of 11,779. Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since 1992. Look Ahead America says it was formed by members of Trump's campaign staff, and is led by former Trump campaign staffer Matt Braynard, to 'register, educate and enfranchise' citizens who are disaffected. A summary of the Look Ahead America report claims illegal ballots were cast in the names of people who voted using early and absentee ballots: 'There's not enough in that public report to confirm or dispute anything, and that seems to be their goal,' said Matthew Weil, director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. The summary recycles claims that are 'nothing but innuendo and speculation,' said Ari Schaffer, spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State. He noted that Trump's campaign in January dropped four lawsuits it had filed in Georgia making unsubstantiated allegations about ineligible voters and fraud and seeking to overturn the election result in the state. David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, also called the new claims a rehash. He said that 'rather than subject these claims to judicial scrutiny and cross-examination, they voluntarily dismissed their claims' in court. Look Ahead America says an 'unredacted version' of its report with full data is being provided to 'government officials and select journalists and other individuals upon request.' We asked Braynard for the full report. He replied with only a link to a February tweet he posted about one of our fact-check articles that mentioned him. In January, PolitiFact rated False a claim by Trump that 4,925 voters from out-of-state voted in Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. It appeared Trump got his number from Braynard, who arrived at the number by comparing Georgia registration and voting lists with the U.S. Postal Service change-of-address data. Braynard's analysis was criticized by statisticians and election experts for failing to meet scientific standards of evidence. In December, FactCheck.org found that a report by Braynard claiming that 20,312 people who no longer met residency requirements cast ballots in Georgia was not credible.
Our ruling A headline widely shared on Facebook claimed a group 'identifies 12,547 illegal votes' in Georgia's 2020 election results, 'exceeds margin of victory in the state.' The number is larger than Biden's margin of victory over Trump in Georgia. The pro-Trump group, whose leader has made other election irregularity claims about the Georgia election that have been discredited, posted a report that provided no data back up its claim. We rate the claim False.
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