Georgia election official says if Perdue or Loeffler loses, it's due to 'Trump and his actions'

Gabriel Sterling is Georgia's Republican voting systems manager, and during an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, he said if one or both of the Republican Senate candidates loses their runoff election, they can blame President Trump.

"I'll speak outside of my role working for the state," he said. "This is a personal opinion that it will fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his actions since Nov. 3rd."

Trump has spent the last two months claiming, without any evidence, that the election was stolen from him. He lost Georgia to President-elect Joe Biden, and on Saturday asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes for him to overturn the results. By constantly making false accusations and telling people "your vote doesn't count, it's been stolen ... people start to believe that," Sterling said.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The president has been trying to "trigger a civil war inside the Republican Party," Sterling declared, and he believes Trump has successfully divided the GOP. "The thing now is, no matter what you say, you can't undermine the people of Georgia's integrity to know the voting system works and their vote is going to count at the end of the day, one way or the other, how this election comes out," Sterling said.