john eastman

As Georgia prosecutors announced the indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 others for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election, much attention has been paid to the infamous phone call in which Trump told Georgia’s chief election official that he wanted “to find 11,780 votes.” But this phone call was only one part of a broad campaign to pressure Georgia’s public officials to cast doubt on the election results or even disregard the will of the voters. And the effort did not stop on January 6—the lies spread and the futile pursuit to build support for those lies created lasting consequences for elections, both in Georgia and across the country.

By the end of November 2020, most states, including Georgia, had not only finished counting all ballots, but also conducted recounts and post-election audits that confirmed the presidential election outcome every time. In Georgia, counties first counted all ballots using electronic tabulators, then counted all ballots by hand, and then recounted all ballots using different electronic tabulators, each time confirming that Trump had lost the election. Courts across the country had also considered and rejected more than 60 lawsuits that claimed there was outcome-determinative fraud.