The Washington Post is awarding four “Pinocchios” to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for what it says are “false” claims she made about the 2020 presidential election on January 6.
Stefanik claimed in a statement, “In Georgia, there was unconstitutional overreach when the Secretary of State unilaterally gutted signature matching for absentee ballots and in essence eliminated voter verification required by state election law.”
She added, “In addition, more than 140,000 votes came from underage, deceased, and otherwise unauthorized voters — in Fulton County alone. And many individuals testified to not being able to meaningfully observe the counting of ballots.”
The Post’s Glenn Kessler argued the “whole statement is riddled with false claims.”
Kessler first addressed Stefanik’s argument about the more than 140,000 illegitimate votes, “Anyone with basic math skills would know that this claim is absurd. There were only about 525,000 votes cast in the presidential race in Fulton County.”
Stefanik’s communications director, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement, “The number came from litigation that was ongoing at the time.”
According to the Post, the publication is “unaware of any litigation that made this claim specifically about Fulton County, as is the Georgia secretary of state’s office.”
Touching on Stefanik’s claim about signature matching, Kessler wrote, “Raffensperger did not ‘gut’ signature matching for absentee ballots.”
“In March 2020, the state settled a lawsuit with Democrats, who had argued that minorities ended up having a larger proportion of their ballots rejected,” Kessler wrote.
He continued, “The settlement — signed by Georgia’s attorney general, not the secretary of state — laid out steps to notify voters if there was a potential problem with a signature match.”
In a Facebook post in November, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pointed out the rejection rate from 2018 to 2020 was the “exact same. … So, the idea that some settlement agreement that we entered into changed how counties were doing this is basically nonsense.”
Addressing Stefanik’s last claim about individuals testifying “to not being able to meaningfully observe the counting of ballots,” Kessler noted, “Judges across the country rejected much of the testimony made by Trump partisans as unreliable or false.”
“With the passage of time, the appropriate thing for Stefanik to do now would be to admit her statements on Jan. 6 were false,” the analysis reads.
It goes on, “The Georgia election was overseen by Republicans, the ballots were counted three times and, while the margin was close, it’s clear that Biden narrowly won Georgia.”
The Post suggested it does not “award Pinocchios when a politician admits error.”
“But instead, the lawmaker directed a spokesperson to issue a statement that offers no regrets and suggests there are still questions about the Georgia vote,” Kessler wrote.
He concluded, “The source of Stefanik’s 140,000 figure is suspect, and she offers another dubious claim from the Trumperverse that has already been debunked. Stefanik earns Four Pinocchios.”
