Investigators in Georgia have determined that just four ballots were cast in last year’s presidential election in the names of deceased individuals — far off from the 5,000 instances of “dead people voting” that former President Donald Trump has claimed to have been present in the state. As explained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia “State Election Board referred the cases to the attorney general’s office this month after investigators reviewed dozens of allegations,” finding no evidence to support claims of large numbers of ballots submitted in the names of deceased individuals.
All four of the ballots that state investigators uncovered to have been actually submitted under the identities of dead people had been sent in by family members. Cases involve individuals like a 74-year-old widow named Sharon Nelson, who submitted a ballot in the name of her husband, who had died in the lead-up to the election. Attorney Barry Bishop, who is representing Nelson, told state authorities that her late husband “was going to vote Republican, and she said, ‘Well, I’m going to cancel your ballot because I’m voting Democrat.’ It was kind of a joke between them… She received the absentee ballot and carried out his wishes… She now realizes that was not the thing to do.” Obviously, that’s nothing like the sort of sweeping fraud schemes that Trump has claimed plagued the presidential race.
Other instances include the case of Sherry Cook, who submitted a ballot in the name of her late husband. She claimed to authorities that she and her daughter had sent the ballot back in after her husband signed it prior to his death, but the ballot wasn’t issued until after the date of his passing. Ultimately, these isolated instances do not add up to the systematic fraud that Trump has claimed was responsible for Biden’s victory in Georgia and across the country as a whole. As Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recently put it, discussing the allegations of caches of ballots in dead people’s names: “What I tell people is what really happened in Georgia, because we proved that none of that was what happened.”
No legitimate investigation anywhere in the country has uncovered evidence showing the kind of fraud that Trump has insisted was behind Biden’s win. A recent review by the Associated Press of documented instances of possible voter fraud in a selection of key states found fewer than 475 such cases — nowhere near the level that would have been required to shift the election outcome. Trump continues to face a criminal investigation from Atlanta-area District Attorney Fani Willis over his meddling, including his pressure on Georgia officials to change their state’s election outcome.
