Peach Tree Times

Concerns over Election Day vote counts in leaked conversation by President Donald Trump in which he castigages Ga. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are being backed up by an election challenge in DuPage County, Ill.

Trump has been the focus of much consternation after a phone call with Raffensperger was released by the Washington Post yesterday. 

In that call Trump noted irregularities in the vote in Georgia and asked Raffensperger, a frequent Trump target, to determine if votes had been miscalculated. 

Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue claim Raffensperger has failed to release any data  regarding Election Day vote totals versus the number of registered voters. Raffensperger has denied these allegations.

In DuPage County, Illinois, a test case on voter data may set a precedent for Trump to challenge vote tabulations across the country, including in key swing states like Georgia. 

In that race, Bob Grogan, lost the November election for DuPage County auditor by 75 votes. However, after the DuPage Clerk released information on the number of votes versus the number of voters, Grogan discovered a 1,600-vote shift in three precincts that determined the outcome of the election.  

The precinct-by-precinct data was provided to Grogan’s team by the DuPage Clerk.   

Grogan said that on Dec. 24, his team filed a petition with the circuit court asking a judge to consider further action after they found there were three precincts where all ballots were missing judges’ initials.

“We found 240 ballots in vote by mail that … were also missing judges’ initials (net pickup for me of 56),” Grogan wrote in a Facebook post. “This was only looking at a quarter of the cast ballots. Note that state statute requires all ballots to have a judge’s initials.” 

Nationally Trump is seeking the release of lists of registered voters who voted on Election Day and he claims he has been rebuffed. 

A similar issue occurred in Detroit on a national level, after a Wayne County Board of Canvassers member, Ned Staebler, said that only 72% of ballots within the county were able to be recounted.