ATLANTA (AP) – Georgia election officials say they are referring to a possible criminal case for a potential electoral fraud case involving a group recently linked to one of the state’s new Democratic US senators – The New Georgia Project.
US Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat elected to the Senate last month, is named a defendant in the case because of his previous ties to the group, reported The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
It is among 35 cases involving potential violations of the electoral law sent by the State Electoral Council to the attorney general or local prosecutors, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement on Thursday.
The New Georgia Project, which presents itself as a non-partisan effort to register voters, is accused of sending 1,268 voter registration requests after the 10-day deadline to do so. The missed deadline caused voters to lose their right to vote in the March 19, 2019 special election, according to Raffensperger’s statement.
It is one of 35 cases involving possible violations of the electoral law that the State Electoral Council is sending to the attorney general or local prosecutors, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement on Thursday.
Warnock was listed as CEO of Project New Georgia at the time, but the organization says his current position was that of chairman of the board. He resigned on January 28, 2020.
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Warnock and the New Georgia Project did not immediately respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
The New Georgia Project was founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams in 2014. It registered almost 500,000 people from underrepresented communities to vote in Georgia. The group also defends civil and human rights “and works to promote justice on behalf of historically marginalized communities,” the agency said in a recent press release.
Also among the cases referred to the Public Ministry, some of which date from several years: Four cases of criminals voting or registering to vote; four cases of non-citizens voting or registering to vote; and a case of ballots lost during the 2020 general election, which did not change the outcome, Raffensperger said in a statement.
“Electoral fraud is not tolerated in Georgia. When there is evidence of this, those responsible face prosecution, ”said Raffensperger, chairman of the five-member electoral council.
“Georgia has a number of safeguards that allow our team of investigators to discover fraudulent voting,” he said. “They worked to detect the crime in these cases and to keep the elections safe in Georgia.”
Separately, a Georgia prosecutor said earlier this week that he opened a criminal investigation into “attempts to influence” the outcome of last year’s general elections. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis did not specifically mention former President Donald Trump in the letters she sent to state officials on Wednesday announcing her investigation. But Willis spokesman Jeff DiSantis told the Associated Press that a call Trump made to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last month is “part of that”.
On the January 2 call, Trump asked Raffensperger to find enough votes to undo Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.