The debate over election fraud could be harming the GOP’s chances of retaining control of the Senate. At least, this is what many Republicans involved in the effort to win the runoff elections in Georgia. The situation is critical as the GOP must win one of the seats to maintain their majority in the Senate. 

The Washington Times reported that, “charges of election fraud by President Trump and his legal advisers are tripping up Republicans in Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs and stoking fears that the GOP majority in the upper chamber could be put at risk.”

GOP Sens David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are trying to toe the line between supporting President Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud while still persuading conservative voters to have enough faith in the system to show up to the polls on Jan. 5th, when the runoff election will be held. 

“Right now it seems there is chaos and that is the worry — that this could keep Republicans from turning out the vote,” GOP strategist David Johnson told the Times.

Sidney Powell, an attorney that was working with Trump’s legal team is expected to file a lawsuit on Wednesday making allegations of widespread voting fraud involving voting machines and “foreign intrusion” in the election. She has made numerous television appearances claiming that Dominion Voting Systems’ machines switched “millions” of votes from Trump to former Vice President Joe Biden. The attorney has also accused Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger of being in on the alleged plot to steal the election from the president. 

“There are just countless incidents of voter fraud and election fraud, writ large, in Georgia,” Powell said in a Tuesday appearance on Fox Business. She stated that she will also file similar lawsuits in other states. So far, she has not provided much evidence to support her claims, but she promised to lay out the proof in court “within two weeks.”

The Washington Times noted that, “the accusations are exacerbating lingering intraparty feuds in the Georgia GOP and forcing Mr. Perdue and Ms. Loeffler to navigate choppy political waters ahead of the Jan. 5 showdowns with Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, respectively.”

President Trump and his allies have pressured Kemp and Raffensperger to support their claims of voter fraud. The conflict became more pronounced when Powell claimed that they were part of the scheme involving the voting machines in an appearance on Newsmax. 

“Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state need to go with it because they are in on the Dominion [voting machine] scam with their last-minute purchase or award of a contract to Dominion of $100 million,” she said. “The state bureau of investigation for Georgia ought to be looking into financial benefits received by Mr. Kemp and the secretary of state’s family about that time.”

However, it appears that Trump’s team isn’t willing to go as far as to back Powell’s accusations. Shortly after she made her remarks, they distanced themselves from her. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliaini released a statement explaining that she “is not a lawyer for the President in his personal capacity.” 

Both Perdue and Loeffler have supported the president’s call for a recount. They also took to Twitter to call for a special session in which the counting of the votes would be monitored to ensure the integrity of the election. 

People involved with the Stop the Steal movement has been trying to convince Republican voters in Georgia to stay home on the day of the runoff because they do not believe that both senators are doing enough to support the president. Conservative operative Ali Alexander, one of the leaders of the movement, publicly threatened to persuade 100,000 right-leaning voters to withhold their votes from both candidates so that the Democrats would win control of the Senate. 

Trump ally Roger Stone has also supported a boycott of the runoff election. 

From the Times:

“Mr. Stone popped back onto the scene this week after The Daily Beast reported that he and conservative operatives in the state are urging Trump supporters to sit out the Georgia runoff races or write-in Mr. Trump‘s name as a way to stick it to Republicans for not doing more to support the president’s efforts to overturn the election.”

Lin Wood, Trump’s personal attorney also chimed in. “Want to get @SenLoeffler & @sendavidperdue out of their basements to demand that action must be taken to fix steal of the 11/3 GA election?” he tweeted on Sunday. “Threaten to withhold your votes & money. Demand that they represent you.”

Donald Trump Jr. pushed back against calls for a boycott. “I’m seeing a lot of talk from people that are supposed to be on our side telling GOP voters not to go out & vote for @KLoeffler and @PerdueSenate,” he tweeted.”That is NONSENSE. IGNORE those people. We need ALL of our people coming out to vote for Kelly & David.”

However, the boycott movement’s efforts might not be successful. Jay Williams, a GOP consultant, stated that he believes conservatives will still show up at the polls. “I don’t get the sense that a lot of rank-and-file Republicans are going to boycott this thing,” he told the Washington Times.

Hopefully, Williams’ prediction is accurate. Earlier this week I wrote about the foolish idea to boycott the Georgia election. There are far better ways of pressuring Republican officials to fix the election process than helping the Democrats give Biden both chambers of the legislature. 

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

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