‘Conspiracy theories:’ Georgia elections chief levels withering attack on voter activist Abrams

Georgia’s top election official on Thursday leveled a blistering attack on his longtime nemesis, arguing liberal voter activist Stacey Abrams has no business interjecting bogus “stolen election” claims into Virginia’s closely contested gubernatorial race to try to help Democrats win.

“With Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe giving Stacey Abrams a platform to spread stolen election conspiracy theories, I felt it important to speak up,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in an Op-Ed in Real Clear Politics designed to remind voters Abrams leveled unproven claims her bid for Georgia governor was stolen in 2018 long before Donald Trump made similar claims in 2020. 

Abrams lost her 2018 race to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp by 55,000 votes but has never conceded and has taken her stories to Virginia in recent days to whip up Democrat votes. 

Raffensperger, who famously resisted Trump’s efforts to overturn last November’s election, said Abrams was first to erode Georgians’ confidence  in their election systems and then used her claims as a fundraising tool.

“Virginia deserves better,” he wrote. “By inviting Stacey Abrams, who has yet to concede her 2018 gubernatorial election race, to campaign for him, McAuliffe is demonstrating that he cannot be trusted to defend Virginia’s elections, a concerning development that should worry every voter in that state.

“Since November 2018, Abrams has alleged repeatedly that her election was ‘stolen.’  She filed a lawsuit against Georgia’s elections officials that continues to this day, though a federal judge appointed by President Obama has thrown out the most headline-generating allegations,” he continued. “She has raised millions of dollars off of her stolen election claims and has since built a national profile based on lies about the integrity of Georgia’s elections. She has referred to Republicans as domestic enemies.”

Raffensperger also poked McAuliffe, noting his earlier embrace of stolen election claims as far back as 2000.

“McAuliffe is no stranger to stolen election claims either. He famously insists the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections were stolen. In 2019, McAuliffe spread conspiracy theories about voting machines being hacked by the Russians during the 2020 election,” he wrote.

Raffensperger has battled with Abrams for years in the courts of public opinion and law but his OpEd Thursday escalated the feud.