He might have lost his election race, but Rep. Doug Collins isn’t out of the fight.
Collins, a lawyer, has been tapped by President Trump’s campaign to lead the recount effort in Georgia.
Trump and the Republican National Committee have claimed voter fraud occurred in several states as they continue to push back on presumptive President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Georgia’s top election official, a Republican, said there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing in Georgia. But Collins pushed back and said in a statement, “Georgians deserve a free and open process, and they will get one.”
Collins, a four-term Gainesville congressman, lost his bid for the Senate last week to fellow Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who will advance to the runoff election in January.
Collins relied on his pro-Trump allegiance throughout his failed run.
He is the lone senior Republican elected official in Georgia to promote the theory that Biden “stole” the election. Collins said in a statement that the Trump campaign was “confident” that the recounting group would “find evidence of improperly harvested ballots.”
Matt Morgan, Trump 2020 general counsel, said the campaign was “concerned about the lack of transparency in the tabulation process.”
“In order for Americans to have full faith and confidence in our elections, every legal vote must be counted, and every illegal or fraudulent vote must be excluded,” he said.
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Almost immediately after being tapped for the spot, Democrats poked fun at Trump for choosing Collins.
“If the best lawyer the GOP can find is Doug Collins, then they’ve conceded defeat,” Georgia Democratic state Rep. Scott Holcomb said.
Biden is ahead in the Peach State by 10,353 votes, according to the latest tally by the secretary of state’s office. There were nearly 5 million votes cast in the presidential race in Georgia. However, with such a tight margin of victory — Biden has 49.48% of the vote while Trump has 49.28% — a recount is likely.
Last week, a Georgia judge threw out a lawsuit filed by the Georgia GOP and Trump’s campaign that accused officials in Chartham County of mishandling absentee ballots.
The lawsuit was the first in what the Georgia GOP claimed would be a dozen.
The suit claimed that at least 53 ballots were potentially mishandled by the Chatham County Board of Elections. Chatham, which lies in coastal southeastern Georgia and includes Savannah, typically leans left.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass did not give an explanation for why he dismissed the lawsuit.
