Loeffler says she supports GOP senators' challenge of electoral votes
ATLANTA - Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler said she plans to support fellow Republican lawmakers who will object and challenge the results of November's presidential election.
Loeffler in a statement released on her social media accounts on Monday said she will "give President Trump & the American people the fair hearing they deserve & support the objection to the Electoral College certification process."
Loeffler joins her fellow Republican Georgia senator, David Perdue, who released his own statement on the matter earlier in the day. While Loeffler can formally object on Wednesday because she was appointed, Perdue cannot. Georgian have not decided on who will represent them in this new Congress that convened on Sunday. Tuesday's runoff vote will and it could take days to determine the winner.
"The American people deserve a platform in Congress, permitted under the Constitution, to have election issues presented so that they can be addressed," Loeffer's statement reads.
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Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Saturday announced a coalition of 11 senators and senators-elect who have been enlisted for Trump’s effort to subvert the will of American voters.
This follows the declaration from Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who was the first to buck Senate leadership by saying he would join with House Republicans in objecting to the state tallies during Wednesday’s joint session of Congress.
"We do not take this action lightly," Cruz and the other senators said in a joint statement.
They vowed to vote against certain state electors on Wednesday unless Congress appoints an electoral commission to immediately conduct an audit of the election results.
Loeffler, a staunch Trump supporter, also said she wants to look into voting irregulars and possible fraud in the last election.
"I have also already introduced legislation to establish a commission to investigate election irregularities & recommend election integrity measures, which I will be working to get passed in the Senate. We must restore trust, confidence & integrity in our election system," Loeffler's statement concludes.
That message was something that Georgia Election Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling spoke about during a press conference on Monday afternoon. Sterling, a Republican like his boss, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, spent 20 minutes debunking such claims who he said have been spread by the president and his supporters.
Loeffler's statement comes in the shadows of a divisive call between President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which the president could be heard pressuring the state official to "find" enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Georgia.
President-elect Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia by about 12,000 votes out of the 5 million cast, but Trump and his allies have made repeated baseless claims of widespread election fraud.
A recent audit of more than 15,000 absentee ballot envelopes in one Georgia county found "no fraudulent absentee ballots," investigators said.
A bipartisan group of 10 senators, including Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mitt Romney of Utah, responded to the effort in a joint statement saying, "The 2020 election is over."
The senators wrote that further attempts to cast doubt on the election are "contrary to the clearly expressed will of the American people and only serve to undermine Americans’ confidence in the already determined election results."
Loeffler was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp last year after Sen. Johnny Isakson retired due to on-going health issues. Polls released Monday show Loeffer is in an extremely tight race against Democratic challenge Rev. Raphael Warnock.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.