As he runs for a second White House term, former President Donald Trump has continued to baselessly claim the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Four years ago, his pressure campaign was on full display in Georgia. Trump and his allies tried to convince the state’s Republican election officials to overturn results those officials said were free and fair.
In the closing days of the 2024 election, Spectrum News went to Georgia to see how those same officials are preparing to push back if Trump once again claims fraud.
'We’re treating it like a Chick-fil-A line'
In just 10 days of early voting this fall, more than 2.5 million Georgia residents cast their ballot early, according to the Secretary of State’s office – a record turnout.
“It’s been smooth as hell. Any place where there has been any kind of line, we’re treating it like a Chick-fil-A line. It moves really fast and everybody’s happy at the end,” Gabriel Sterling, the Republican chief operating officer for the secretary of state, told Spectrum News in an interview at the state capitol.
At a recent campaign rally in Duluth, Georgia, Trump had this message for his supporters.
“Just vote. Whichever way you want to do it. I’ve been one that says whichever way, just get out and vote. Be a little careful, make sure your vote gets counted,” he said.
While Trump’s campaign has been urging supporters to vote early if they’d like, the former president has been less embracing of it.
Throughout his third run for president, Trump has continued to baselessly claim the last election was stolen from him.
“The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024,” Trump said in June at the Faith & Freedom Coalition Dinner in Washington, D.C.
At a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, on October 3, Trump called 2020 “a rigged election,” adding, “You have to tell Kamala Harris, that's why I'm doing it again. If I thought I lost, I wouldn't be doing this again.”
And in an interview with Bloomberg News at the Economic Club of Chicago on Oct. 15, Trump said of 2020, “If you think an election is crooked, and I do, hundred percent.”
Trump’s own attorney general, multiple Republican judges he appointed, and GOP election officials across the country have said repeatedly that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
'The driver for this was suspicions'
In Georgia, Sterling and his boss, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, famously pushed back on Trump’s attempts to have the results overturned four years ago.
“I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said in a call to Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021.
Four days later, Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the election results from being certified, injuring 140 police officers in the process.
In June 2022, Raffensperger testified before the Jan. 6th Committee.
“There were no votes to find. That was an accurate count that had been certified,” he said of the call with Trump.
Alex Sanz, the deputy managing editor and politics director for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution newspaper, said a similar groundwork is being laid ahead of this year’s election.
“Despite all the conversations of the past four years of unproven, unfounded allegations of voter fraud, there seem to be steps being taken now to question the outcome of the election in a few weeks,” he told Spectrum News.
Sanz pointed out that Georgia’s five-person state election board – made up of four Republicans and one Democrat – tried this summer to change the rules to require all ballots cast be counted by hand and to broaden how requests for election documents could be made. In October, a judge ruled it was too close to Election Day to implement the changes.
“But taken all together, there is certainly a sense that the driver for this was suspicions. The ones that we saw surface after the 2020 election,” Sanz said.
Charles Bullock, a longtime political scientist at the University of Georgia, said despite there being no evidence of fraud in 2020, “most Georgia Republicans continue to believe Trump when he says that the election in Georgia was stolen from him, that he actually won it and he got counted out.”
Trump supporters still don’t trust Raffensperger and Sterling
Though Raffensperger and Sterling – two conservative Republicans – are once again overseeing Georgia’s election process, Trump supporters at his rally in Duluth told Spectrum News they don’t trust them.
“I can’t say whether he’s speaking the truth or somebody gave him a line to say or what,” Charles Lucas said of Raffensperger.
Jennifer Knutson, donning a Make America Great Again hat, said, “I think it was rigged the first time, and I want to make sure it’s not going to happen again.”
At an early voting location in Cumming, Georgia, local Republican commentator Mykel Barthelemy said she doesn't feel confident in the results being fair in the Peach State this year, despite Raffensperger and Sterling mapping out that there was no fraud in 2020.
“They were the problem to begin with, the first time,” she said. “I mean, we call them RINOS – Republican in name only. We’re hoping that they’ve repented, you know, and now that they’re going to do the right thing, but as of now, it doesn’t look like they’re about to.”
At the same polling site, supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris told Spectrum News they trust the state’s GOP election officials.
“I, personally, I’m totally confident in the system,” Duane Rocke said. “I liked what Mr. Raffensperger had to say.”
Team Trump’s 'Protect the Vote' effort
In the closing stretch of the presidential race, Harris has been campaigning with former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney in an effort to remind voters of the violence on Jan. 6 and Trump’s unwillingness to accept election results unless he wins.
At a stop in Pennsylvania, Cheney said about her own kids: “Are they going to grow up in a country where we don’t have to worry about the peaceful transfer of power? Are they going to group up in a country where that is guaranteed?”
This election cycle, the Trump campaign and national Republican Party have launched what it calls a “Protect the Vote” program to recruit volunteers to serve as poll watchers, poll workers, and legal experts who can scrutinize the results as they come in.
To date, over 230,000 volunteers have signed up to help in 18 key states, including Georgia. The RNC says it has over 5,000 legal experts on standby nationwide.
In a statement to Spectrum News, Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign and RNC, said, “While Democrats will stop at nothing to weaken our elections, we are fighting for a fair and secure process where every legal vote is counted properly.”
Sterling hopes voters see efforts to be transparent
Back at the state capitol, Spectrum News asked Sterling how worried he is, based on what happened in 2020, that Trump and his campaign would sow a similar level of doubt in Georgia in 2024.
“Well I think the people who believe in that right now already are there,” he said. “No matter what happens outcome-wise, even if he wins, they’re going to be like, ‘I’m not sure about all the parts of this system.’ We are more prepared for it and I think people are getting more discerning.”
Sterling said he hopes voters see the secretary of state’s efforts to be transparent.
“In Georgia, every single machine, every single device is tested before the election to make sure it’s operating properly,” he said. “In the middle of the election, we’re doing parallel monitoring to make sure that the machines are casting the ballots as intended by the voters. And after the election, we are running not one, but two separate audits – two different types – to assure people the outcome is correct.”
Polls show the race between Trump and Harris is neck and neck in Georgia.
Sterling said he’s hopeful people will accept the outcome no matter what, like they did in 2022 when Trump was not on the ballot.
“We feel like we’ve kind of turned a corner in Georgia, but if it’s really close, you never know for sure what can happen,” he said.