Georgia leaders, voting rights advocates respond after Trump's election integrity speech revives false claims

Georgia election officials, voting rights advocates and political leaders quickly responded Thursday night after President Trump delivered a speech focused on election integrity that revived a series of false and misleading claims about U.S. elections, including allegations involving Georgia.

During the address, Mr. Trump argued the nation's election system remains vulnerable to fraud and claimed Americans cannot be confident their votes are being counted accurately.

However, multiple claims made during the speech conflict with findings from election officials, audits and cybersecurity experts.

CBS News reported that election officials have repeatedly found no evidence of widespread fraud capable of changing the outcome of recent presidential elections. 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has previously described the 2020 election as "the most secure in American history," and state audits in Georgia have repeatedly affirmed the accuracy of election results. 

CBS News Atlanta also reviewed several claims made during the speech.

One assertion that the current election system "falls catastrophically short" of ensuring secure elections was rated false, citing repeated findings from election officials that election infrastructure remains secure. 

Another claim that "hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls" was rated exaggerated, noting that documented cases of non-citizen voting or ballots cast in the names of deceased individuals are exceptionally rare and have not been shown to affect election outcomes.

Raffensperger defends Georgia's election system

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defended the state's election safeguards following the president's remarks.

"Georgia does a tremendous job in citizenship check," Raffensperger said. "We're the first state in the country to do a robust citizenship verification. We've now done two of them and we are completing our third one as I speak."

Georgia has implemented multiple citizenship verification reviews in recent years as part of its voter list maintenance efforts.

Voting rights attorney: "We heard a whole bunch of nothing"

Arthur Ago, director of Strategic Litigation and Advocacy at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told CBS News Atlanta the president's speech did not present new evidence undermining Georgia's elections.

"The biggest misconception is that the elections are not fair and free and safe," Ago said. "They are fair and safe. Georgia's elections over the decades have been certified as accurate." 

After reviewing documents released alongside the speech, Ago said he found no evidence supporting allegations of widespread election problems.

"I want to be clear about what we heard from the president tonight," Ago told CBS News Atlanta. "We heard a whole bunch of nothing."

He encouraged Georgia voters to ignore political rhetoric and instead focus on participating in future elections.

"Go vote, make a plan to vote. Get out there, cast your ballot. It will be counted. The results will be accurate." 

Ago also said the greatest challenge facing Georgia voters is not election administration itself, but continued efforts to erode public confidence in the state's voting system.

"The most significant thing that is facing Georgia right now is an attempt to undermine the confidence that Georgians have in their election system," he said. 

Georgia Democrats criticize speech

Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey also criticized the president's address, accusing him of reviving long-debunked election conspiracy theories.

In a statement released shortly after the speech, Bailey said Mr. Trump was attempting to distract voters by revisiting disproven claims about election fraud while Georgians continue facing economic concerns. He argued Georgia voters would ultimately reject those attacks at the ballot box. 

CBS News fact-checks

CBS News' ongoing fact-checking of the president's speech found several election-related claims lacked supporting evidence or overstated isolated incidents involving voter registration.

Election experts have consistently said documented cases of voter fraud remain rare, while multiple audits, recounts and court proceedings following the 2020 election found no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed election outcomes.

As political debate over election administration continues, Georgia officials and voting rights advocates urged voters to rely on verified information from election authorities and established voting rights organizations when evaluating claims about election integrity.