Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., tells Newsmax TV that though it may seem odd he’s looking to leave Congress to run for a state office, it’s really because of the importance of ensuring election integrity.
“I just believe duty calls right now to step up to the plate, restore election integrity and the confidence of the voters in Georgia,” Hice said Monday on “Spicer & Co.”
Hice hopes to unseat Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, and he’s secured the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
“Listen we’ve got a huge issue on our hand. I mean, we are a system of government where the consent of the governed makes the difference,” Hice said, “and when the consent of the governed is in question, and the people feel as though their votes don’t count and election integrity is dismantled, we’ve got to step up and fix it.”
Hice, who has represented Georgia’s 10th Congressional District since 2015, said the issue is “a whole lot bigger than me,” and he would be happy to stay in Congress for a long time.
Hice called Trump’s endorsement “very humbling” and said he was “deeply, deeply grateful” to receive it, noting that “the people of Georgia love him, and he was the one that got short-handed in Georgia because of the disastrous decisions of Brad Raffensperger. And we’ve got to fix that.”
As a result, he said, half a million people in the state did not even bother to go back to the polls in Georgia to vote for the Senate races, handing both Republican seats to Democrats for the first time in decades. As a result, the U.S. Senate is now in control of the Democrats, giving the party majorities in both chambers of Congress as well as the presidency.
Raffensperger came under fire from Trump and his allies, after the secretary of state refused to back the president’s claim that Georgia’s 16 electoral votes were stolen from him. Raffensperger, who said he voted for and supported Trump, maintains the elections were fair and that the votes were accurately counted.
Hice said the entire nation is suffering a lack of confidence in elections over Georgia’s elections. “It’s suffering because of the lack of confidence that people’s vote in Georgia matters. And so the endorsement from the president is just phenomenal.”
Hice said the problems began when Raffensperger entered a consent decree with Democrat Stacey Abrams, who lost the gubernatorial election to Republican Brian Kemp, which allowed voter registrations to be sent to every person in the state without regard to eligibility to voter.
“And there was virtually no voter ID associated with those ballots that started the process,” Hice said. He said voter drop boxes that were not monitored only added to the problem, as did Republican poll watchers being sent home.
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Source: Newmax
