[not sure what's going on here, TM]

by ALEC SCHEMMEL, January 4th 2022

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had previously been praised by Democrats for withstanding pressure from former President Donald Trump to recalculate vote totals during the 2020 election, revealed Tuesday there is an active investigation into credible ballot harvesting allegations in the state.

“We’ve actually prosecuted people for ballot harvesting. I’ve had several cases come before me on the state election board,” Raffensperger said on an episode of the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. "So we do have some information and we’re going to investigate that."

Raffensperger noted, however, that a private firm conducted a “statewide ballot harvesting analysis” regarding the 2020 election, which he said showed no irregularities.

“But that said, if people give us credible allegations we want to make sure that we [investigate], and we have that right now as an ongoing investigation," he said.

Podcast host John Solomon pointed out in order to conduct investigations into ballot harvesting, the state elections board sometimes must issue subpoenas to compile information.

“That will be one of the processes we’re looking at if we have people that don’t want to come forward for whatever concern,” Raffensperger told Solomon, “Because we really need to get to the bottom of it, we just can’t let it sit there, so if it comes to that then that will probably be the next step that we’d be looking at.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Trump argued on a now-infamous phone call with Raffensperger, that ballot harvesting and other election-related fraud had occurred in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election. Trump pressured Raffensperger to conduct audits to prove his allegations, arguing they would show election fraud and swing the vote total, making him the winner in Georgia instead of now-President Joe Biden.

In December, Raffensperger spoke to the House select committee investigating the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

"He said he could find no illegality or irregularity in the election," Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chair of the Jan. 6 committee, told reporters, according to CNN. "I spoke to the January 6th committee to ensure they included the full record of how stolen election claims damage our democracy — whether in 2016, 2018, or 2020," Raffensperger said in a statement to CNN.

Raffensperger also said on Solomon's podcast Tuesday that he had proposed a constitutional amendment to Georgia's General Assembly aimed at explicitly restricting voting by non-citizens.

https://thenationaldesk.com/news/america...llot-harvesting