Q&A of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel & GAGOP Chair David Shafer in Marietta, Georgia
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-David: Verification process the political parties
refer to in the agreement are the
Democratic National Committee,
the Democratic Party of Georgia,
and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
We were not part of that agreement,
and when I realized that we were not part of it,
I called Rhonna Romney and I said
I am never going to let another election lawsuit
be filed in this state without
the Republican party intervening as its own party.
And she, the Republican National Committee
joined us in intervening
in the absentee ballot deadline case,
which prepared a [inaudible] brief
that we ultimately prevailed in.
And so we're not going to trust anybody else
other than the leadership of the Republican Party
to fight for election integrity
in Georgia going forward.
-Female: [Inaudible] is corrupt.
How are we going to trust him?
-David: So the reason that David Perdue
did not ask for a recount
is that the law is written in a goofy way
that only the person that loses
can ask for a recount.
So he was barred from doing so.
Bubba McDonald asked for one.
-Female: Learn your election laws.
Bubba McDonald asked for one but was
turned down so David did not ask for that reason.
Stacey Abrams has not gotten
800,000 absentee ballots.
[talking]
But you know what?
Not everything that she says is true.
The reality is, let me tell you what happens.
Let me tell you what happened.
If you ask for—
You can ask for an absentee ballot in Georgia
without giving an excuse,
but if you give as your excuse or your reason
that you are over the age of 65,
or disabled, or there may be other reasons as well,
if you mark those reasons, then you are
put on a list where you automatically
get a absentee ballot for every election
in that cycle.
And so at the beginning of this cycle,
there was almost 700,000 ballots
that were just automatically carried over.
Those were not Stacey Abrams ballots.
Those were 700,000 carried over
and half of those were Republican ballots.
So we are not 800,000 votes behind.
And let me say this,
there's three different election contests
that are going to be filed
in connection with the Presidential race.
There's an election contest that the
Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society filed last week.
It deals with the fact that Mark Zuckerberg
gave money to certain Democratic counties
to help care the ballots
and not to other Republican counties.
It's an equal protection claim
and that will be litigated.
There's the suit that everyone's heard about
that challenges the integrity of the machines.
I have not defended or criticized the voting machines
because I don't know enough about them
to intelligently discuss them.
But there will be a third contest
that's filed on Monday
and it will be the President's official challenge
and I'll be joining in that.
Under Georgia law, to set aside this election,
we have to show
that the number of irregular votes
exceeds the margin.
We don't have to show who those
irregular votes voted for.
We just have to show that there are
more than the margin.
The margin is 12,000 votes
before the recount.
We'll see what the margin is after the recount.
But there are 450 felons that voted.
There are, not a large number, but there are some
votes that were cast in the names of people who are dead.
There's some people who voted twice.
Three are 4,500 people who voted by absentee
but are registered in other states.
And there's 10,000 more that voted
by absentee even though they filed
changes of addresses to live in other states.
Now, not every one of those is
necessarily an unlawful vote,
but there is enough suspicious votes
for this to be settled by the courts.
And so this will all be worked out.
In the general election we asked for an opportunity
to view the absentee ballot verification process
and we were denied.
Which is why the Governor
and both United States Senators
and why I and why every member of the
State Executive Committee of the Georgia Republican Party
has asked Brad Raffensperger to audit
that signature verification process.
I can't tell you why he's not doing it,
but he has issued a bulletin
that will allow us to monitor that process
for the run-off election.
So even though we're not winning
every single battle,
we are moving it in our direction and we are
not going to allow the run-off election to be stolen.
What you all cannot do is lose heart.
The future of America is going to be
decided on January 5th.
If we lose the White House,
we've already lost the House of Representatives,
if we lose the White House
and lose the Senate,
every island colony is going to
have two United States Senators
and the Supreme Court
is going to have 30 members.
I mean, we will never recover from that.
So we cannot give up.
We have to keep fighting.
-Ronna: Here's what I want to say.
I know that you're upset with some Republicans.
I get that.
But everybody needs to focus
on the mission at hand.
And it is Jon Ossoff and Warnock.
We cannot let them win.
But we've got to focus on January 5th right now.
We can deal with those
other things later, and we will.
[clapping and talking]
We're working on the President too,
we're working on all of that.
[talking]
-Male: [Inaudible], and then they turn around,
after this election comes out,
they turn around and they stab
the President in the back and they don't...
-Ronna: Well, I'll tell you what...
-Male: That leadership needs to come from the top.
-Ronna: Well, the RNC is standing
with the President.
[applause]
So I'm here as the head of the Republican Party
saying we're standing with the President,
we're fighting for this.
You have a very limited period of time
in the canvas and the certification process
to find this, some of this information
we won't even have until February
as to who voted on election day.
We are not giving up.
This is not going to stop.
But what I am saying is,
today, you have got to get out.
We need you.
And I understand you're mad
at these Senators and what have you,
but we have got to focus on
making sure we elect two Republicans
to the United States Senate
and stop Chuck Schumer.
[applause and cheering]
I'm going to disagree with
Chairman Schafer a little bit.
Democrats were repudiated
in this election.
Socialism, this radical agenda
that they're putting forward was repudiated.
We picked up 13 house seats,
27 districts.
We're considered a toss-up
because we won all 27.
In states like California and New York.
We are giving Nancy Pelosi
the smallest majority.
We're about to take back the House in 2022.
[applause]
They didn't pick up a single state legislature,
we picked up 135 state legislative seats.
They didn't flip it.
This is important with redistricting.
This is the last battle, for our President,
but also for these Senators
where we have got to get in
and prevent this agenda.
They expected a blue wave
to take over this country
and they put green waves of money
on top of our candidates.
We are the only thing standing in their way.
You are the only thing standing in their way
and we need you.
We need you.
And I'm begging you to get out
and vote for these candidates
but work so hard because it is not lost.
Go ahead.
-Male: Why is the RNC not spending money
down here on advertising for the 2nd Amendment
and charter schools which is [inaudible]
in the last election?
-Ronna: The RNC doesn't do advertising.
We are ground game.
So we have 20 million down here
knocking doors and doing GOTB,
and the mail, and the phones,
but the RNC doesn't do TV typically.
-David: And that's because of the way
the campaign finance laws are written.
-Male: Encouraging the [inaudible] to do that.
-Ronna: Yeah, SLF is going to have
the most money.
And we are capped.
We have a cap.
-Male: Since the President [inaudible]
in Arizona and Michigan,
is there a chance it could also
flip the votes for John James [inaudible]?
-Ronna: I think what happened
in Michigan at TCF is horrific.
I have friends who were there
who were unable to observe.
Listen, if you're unable to observe,
then you can't say with surety
that everything was done fair and free.
And so it needs to be transparent.
I think John is—
We're going to continue to look at that, we're going to continue to fight.
-Female: How are we tracking people
who are coming in from out of state and registering?
Are we asking them to provide employment?
Are we keeping track of the number of people
who are registering in the last election?
And in Georgia, is it true that you can only
[inaudible] a run-off in the general election?
-David: So, last question first.
That's what the State Constitution says, exactly that.
But, there was another federal lawsuit
that was lost in 2017,
where the federal motor voter law
was held to trump
our own State Constitution.
Now, I expect litigation to be filed
next week on that subject.
But we are tracking every day,
every single new registration
and we have a strategy to deal with that.
-Ronna: And they will be prosecuted.
If somebody comes here,
because you have to move here with the intent of staying.
-Female: How do we know that?
-Ronna: So, people who are coming...well, we pay attention.
[talking]
But if people come and they don't leave,
it's a 10 year potential in prison.
I mean, it's a serious crime.
-David: So people can register December 7th,
but you cannot register
unless you have an intent
to live here permanently.
And all of the celebrates who are saying
move here for vacation,
they took down their Tweets the instant
Chris Carr said that that was a 10 year imprisonment.
-Ronna: And we will make sure.
-Female: If we separate the signatures
from the ballots or that secrecy that then need,
why don't we use computers
to run those signatures on those ballots
through a system to analyze if they
were written by the same hand,
different names by the same hand.
Or if they don't exist in the database?
-Ronna: That's a long—
That won't be done for this election.
I think there's a ton of election
reforms that are going to be put forth.
-Female: If it isn't done for this one...
-Ronna: Well you won't have that technology.
[talking]
Yeah, there's just no way you're going to
implement a whole new system like that.
The best is a person observing.
The best is going to be a person
looking at that.
In Nevada, let me just say this,
in Nevada they have a computer
that does the settings and you know
what the state did?
They changed the calibrations
and we sued before the election
because we knew they were doing that
and we lost the lawsuit, because they codified into law.
So there's nothing constitutionally that allows us
to challenge a state that changes their state law.
And they changed it 80 days
before the election.
But they downgraded their settings
so it didn't pick up.
-Female: So something needs to be done about that.
We either need our monitors there,
-Ronna: And what states are changing their laws.
-David: No, no, no. We need to get rid of
the signature validation all together and require a photo ID.
-Ronna: Photo ID.
We should have photo ID.
That should be the key.
[applause]
Everywhere [inaudible] to get on a plane,
to go visit Nancy Pelosi,
to go to any other place in this country
you have to get a photo ID.
It is ridiculous, it is a myth,
and it is a Democrat talking point
that somehow this is disenfranchising people
to show your ID to vote.
There is nothing more sacred than the
right to vote in the United States of America
and we need to protect
and ensure election integrity.
We're going to end.
You guys are fired up!
[applause and cheering]
I love it.
I'm going to tell the President
that I saw you all today
because he's fired up too.
[chanting Trump...Trump...]
And I promise you, if here were here right now,
and I talked to him yesterday,
and I talked to him on Thanksgiving,
I talk to him pretty much every day,
if he were here right now he would say
please get out and keep working for me,
but make sure we elect
David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.
Thank you so much.