GOP Rep. Jody Hice says Georgia's miserable performance during the 2020 election led him to run for Secretary of State.
“We’ve been watching the demise of our election process for a long, long time,” Hice said Tuesday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “Chris Salcedo Show.”
“In fact, it was a year ago this week that myself and other members of the Georgia delegation actually had a conference call with [Georgia Secretary of State] Brad Raffensperger urging him not to send out applications for absentee ballots to everyone on our voter registration file and unfortunately, he went on and did so and that was the beginning of the end of election integrity of Georgia,” Hice told Salcedo.
“We found out later that he had already made the deal with Stacey Abrams before we had that call. But that was the beginning of turning upside down our election integrity, of losing the confidence of the voters in Georgia. We had 500,000 fewer voters in the Senate race than we did in the presidential race simply because people felt like their votes no longer counted. It was an absolute disaster, it’s something that needs to be fixed. I’m deeply honored to have the president’s endorsement and look forward if the people of Georgia entrust me with this office to fixing this disaster that’s been created by our current secretary of state in Georgia.”
Trump on Monday endorsed Hice in his bid to unseat Raffensperger, who refused to help overturn the November election results.
Hice is the first major challenger to Raffensperger since the secretary of state certified Biden’s narrow victory in Georgia and disputed Trump’s allegations of fraud.
“Jody has been a steadfast fighter for conservative Georgia values and is a staunch ally of the America First agenda,” Trump said in a statement. “Unlike the current Georgia Secretary of State, Jody leads out front with integrity. I have 100% confidence in Jody to fight for Free, Fair, and Secure Elections in Georgia, in line with our beloved U.S. Constitution.”
Hice on Tuesday said choosing to run for secretary of state was a “matter of duty.”
“I’ve just come to realize our government doesn’t work without ‘We the People,’ and when I saw all the disaster created by our secretary of state the reality is, well, then why don’t you do something about it and it just became more and more clear,” he said.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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