Georgia Secretary of State: Sen. Graham Suggested Auditing Signatures

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Tuesday that it would not have been possible to match absentee ballots back to their envelopes during the state's recount, let alone throw out ballots for counties with the largest frequency errors in signatures, as Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested during a phone call. 

"During our discussion, he asked if ballots could be matched back to the envelope, the absentee ballots could be matched back to the envelope," the Republican state official told "CBS This Morning."

"I explained our process after it went through two sets of signature match, at that point, they were separated but then Sen. Graham implied for us to audit the signatures," Raffensperger said.

Graham, R-S.C., said Raffensperger misinterpreted his questions and that he'd just wanted the state official to explain the system to him. 

"I tried to, you know, help explain that because we did signature match, you couldn't tie the signatures back anymore to those ballots or throw out absentee ballots with signature errors," said Raffensperger. "Just like if [you] voted in person, my name is not on my ballot and so it can't be tied back to me. It's something that's been around for over 100 years, the secret ballot."

Raffensperger said that once the ballots are recounted, the election results showing Joe Biden winning over President Donald Trump will stand, even though as a Republican himself he wishes the results would "go another way."

"The losing candidate, if they're within a half percent, which either one would be, they can ask for a full recount, then we'll scan those ballots through again," he said. "That is their right. We'll follow state law."

Meanwhile, Raffensperger told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" that Trump got about 800 votes from a memory stick that was found with 2,600 votes on it. 

"That's why we do audits," he said, adding that the votes were missing because of human error. 

"The county election official was out and assigned a person that was inexperienced for a very critical role and they messed up," said Raffensperger. 

• Rep. Collins: Georgia Recount a 'Fight for Every Legal Vote'
• Trump Laments Georgia Recount's Signature Verification Block