Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham admitted on Tuesday that he spoke to officials in Nevada and Arizona, one day after the Georgia Secretary of State accused him of trying to interference in the state’s election according to The Hill.
Graham told reporters: “I talked to Arizona. I talked to Nevada. Voting by mail is going to be more, not less. How you validate signatures is really important.”
Sen. Graham said he’s reached out to those election officials because he is “worried about the integrity of the election process nationally, when it comes to vote by mail.”
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Arizona turned blue for the first time since 1996 and Trump really made a play for Nevada after he narrowly lost to Clinton in 2016. He thought this was a state he could flip after fear mongering about what a Biden presidency would mean for the tourism industry in the state. But he fell short again.
It’s not a coincidence that Graham was trying to interfere in these two states along with Georgia’s elections under the guise of a senator ‘concerned about the integrity of the election process nationally.’ All three states were crucial to Joe Biden’s victory and if he could cheat enough to flip these states and award their electoral college votes to Trump, it would mean the election would come down to one state, Pennsylvania, where he was hoping that the Supreme Court would hand Trump the election.
Two months ago Graham explicitly said he would accept the results of the election if the Supreme Court, with 1/3 of the justices appointed by Trump, decides it. “The court will decide,” he said. “And if Republicans lose, we’ll accept the result.”
It also does not help his credibility when his lies and attempts to normalize his behavior can easily be debunked. After he told reporters that he spoke to election officials in Nevada and Arizona, both Secretaries of State came out to say they never spoke to Graham.
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Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) said on Twitter that Graham had not spoken with her. Nevada’s Republican Secretary of State, Barbara Cegavske, also said in a statement that she had not spoken with Graham or any other member of Congress about the election.
Graham later said he spoke to the Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey and he could not remember who he spoke to in Nevada.
“What I’m trying to find out is how do you verify mail-in ballots,” Graham said. “The question I have is who verifies the signature and if it’s a single individual, I don’t like that. I think it should be bipartisan,” according to The Hill.
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Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he has witnesses to corroborate his claim that Graham suggested he throw out legally cast ballots in a Georgia during a phone conversation last week.
One staffer who was on the call did come forward to corroborate the SoS. The staffer told CNN that he heard Graham ask if state officials could throw out ballots.
