US election: Donald Trump ally asked official about tossing legally cast ballots

Georgia secretary of state says he interpreted question as request to lose votes

Donald Trump with Lindsey Graham during an event at the White House
Donald Trump with Lindsey Graham during an event at the White House
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked Georgia’s secretary of state if he had the power to reject absentee ballots during the US election, raising questions over whether the close Donald Trump ally was seeking to toss legally cast votes.

Graham questioned Brad Raffensperger “about the state’s signature-matching law and whether political bias could have prompted poll workers to accept ballots with non-matching signatures”, The Washington Post reports.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.