A second ‘dead person’ in Georgia who was claimed to have voted has been found alive and well – dealing yet another blow to Donald Trump’s campaign to overturn the results of the election.
James Blalock, who died in 2006 aged 81, was singled out by the Trump campaign as an example of voter fraud.
‘Mr. James Blalock of Covington, Georgia, a World War II veteran, voted in the election,’ the Trump campaign said.
‘The only problem? He passed away 14 years ago, in January 2006.
‘Sadly, Mr. Blalock is a victim of voter fraud.’
The president has made accusations of voter fraud and electoral irregularity an obsession, seeing legal challenges to the vote – deemed overwhelmingly free and fair – as his only way of keeping hold of the White House.
On Saturday night he tweeted: ‘There is tremendous evidence of wide spread voter fraud in that there is irrefutable proof that our Republican poll watchers and observers were not allowed to be present in poll counting rooms. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and others. Unconstitutional!’
The claims, made without providing proof, were flagged by Twitter as disinformation.
A Gwinnett County voter casts a ballot at Lucky Shoals Park polling station on November 3
Poll workers sort ballot papers in the Georgia World Congress Center on Saturday
Election workers in Dekalb County sort ballots in Stonecrest, Georgia on Saturday
Ballots are checked in Dekalb County, Georgia, on Saturday
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson seized on the Trump campaign claim, declaring on his show on Wednesday night: ‘Truth really matters more than ever.’
He said that what he was reporting was ‘not a theory’.
‘It happened and we can prove it,’ he said.
Carlson, the most-watched man on Fox News, told his viewers: ‘Mr Blalock was a mailman for 33 years until he passed away in 2006.
‘Fourteen years later, according to state records, he was still mailing things.
‘James Blalock cast a ballot in last week’s election.’
Yet on Thursday election officials in Georgia insisted that Carlson was wrong, and a local television station knocked on the door of Mrs James Blalock, who had indeed voted.
Carlson on Wednesday night told his viewers that James Blalock had voted in the election
‘He’s not voting. He didn’t vote,’ Agnes Blalock told 11Alive. ‘It was me.’
Newton County officials confirmed that Agnes Blalock voted using her married name.
‘Her voter registration was signed as Mrs. James E. Blalock, Jr. and that is exactly how she signed her name when she voted in the Nov. 3 general election,’ officials said.
They posted a statement online saying James Blalock’s widow has always voted under that name.
The widow said that she knew immediately what had happened, and that it was not fraud.
Asked about her husband, she replied: ‘Best man I ever knew. Best one to me. I couldn’t have had a better one.’
She told the station that she had voted for Joe Biden.
On Friday evening Carlson admitted his mistake.
‘We’ve got some good news tonight, and an apology,’ he said.
‘One of the people who voted in last week’s election isn’t dead.
‘So apologies for that, and of course we’re always going to correct when we’re wrong. And we were.’
Randy Osborne, Republican party observer, looks as officials sort ballots in Georgia Saturday
Another person accused of voting in Georgia was Linda Kesler.
The Trump campaign said that Linda Kesler died in 2003.
The Jackson County Board of Elections said she did not vote.
‘Linda Kesler of Nicholson was marked deceased in 2003 and did not vote,’ the board of elections said.
‘Lynda Kesler who has a different address, birthday, and zip who is entitled to vote—did vote.’
Two more supposed votes from ‘dead people’ highlighted by the Trump campaign are being investigated.
The campaign has seized upon accusations of voter fraud in a bid to argue that Biden’s victory is illegitimate.
They are contesting the results in court, and in Georgia, where a manual recount is to be carried out because of the narrow margin between the two candidates.
Biden’s margin in Georgia currently stands at just over 14,000 votes, or 0.3 percentage points.
The Biden team said they did not expect it to change the results there.