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CNN Election Day in America Continued; Dems on Cusp of Control as Trump's Electoral Circus Nears End; Warnock Wins, Ossoff Leads as Dems Near Senate Majority; GA Election Officials Speak as Dems Near Senate Majority. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired January 06, 2021 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:00:05]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Anderson Cooper. Welcome to CNN's special coverage of a monumental day in America.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erin Burnett.

And the next 24 hours, this is history in the making. From the historic Senate runoff elections in Georgia to what we're going to see on Capitol Hill today from Republicans, some of them objecting to the Electoral College outcome.

COOPER: In Georgia, we are seeing a historic power shift from red to blue. Joe Biden won the state. Now both the state's Republican senators are on the verge of losing. One race has been called for Democrat Raphael Warnock. The other still too close to call but Democrat Jon Ossoff is leading. The blame for the historic shift falling squarely on President Trump's shoulders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA VOTING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: I mean, that when you tell people your vote didn't count, this is all part of crazy town and people are stealing things, you undermine people's confidence to vote. Then you create a civil war within the GOP at a time when the GOP probably wanted to unite their vote to turnout. Those are the kinds of things that the president is solely responsible for doing.

While he might inspire people on the Republican side, he really pisses off people on the Democratic side and really inspires them to come out and vote. And when you can have a credible villain, that really helps the Democrats turnout their vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And just two hours from now, we're going to see a Republican stunt playout on Capitol Hill because we do know that more than a dozen Republican members of the House and Senate have declared that they will object to the Electoral College count, which of course, is what makes Joe Biden the next president of the United States.

Now it is a stunt. It is done for the purpose of making Trump happy. It will not serve anything other than to fan the flames of baseless conspiracy theories of voter fraud that did not happen. Those claims have been repeatedly debunked by state election officials across this country as well as of course by the attorney general and courts.

The president is trying to keep the pressure on Vice President Mike Pence though to do something today, which of course, he doesn't have the power to do.

And this political turmoil comes as the United States sets another grim record. More than 3,700 people died from COVID-19 yesterday. That is the single biggest loss of American life in a day from this virus as the vaccine rollout falls short of expectations and what we have been promised, Anderson.

COOPER: It's a national tragedy.

We expect to hear from President Trump any moment now, not about the virus, no, he's talking about fraudulent claims about the election. His first public comments since the Georgia runoff election. He will be speaking in front of thousands of supporters who gathered in Washington for a so-called march to save America rally, protesting the legal results of the November election.

CNN's Boris Sanchez is there in Washington, heading to the president's appearance. So, what are you seeing there? What about security?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, it's very difficult to secure a crowd of this size. It is enormous and more people are continuing to show. I got here around 3:30 a.m. and the crowd was already forming around the Washington monument. It is enormous.

There's very little social distancing. There are very few masks. But this is a crowd that's eagerly anticipating what the president is going to say and they are angry. There's an animosity in the air in this crowd not just toward the press but there are other people in the streets who they deem not in agreement with many of their views that the election was stolen.

We've heard lot of incendiary rhetoric and falsehoods. The latest coming from the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who truly spun just disgraceful nonsense and falsehoods to this crown about the election being rigged.

We also heard from Donald Trump Jr. who laid it out for Republicans on Capitol Hill, saying that if they refuse to object to the election results, he will be in their backyard campaigning against them in just a month.

There's a very clear fork in the road for the Republican Party and it's being laid bare at this event where we're anticipating hearing from the president at any moment. Of course, all of that rhetoric given what we saw last night with many of the president's supporters taking to the streets, confronting law enforcement toe-to-toe. A number of incidents across D.C., massive law enforcement presence. The National Guard is ready to go here as well. It's a toxic mixture.

And as soon as the president is done speaking here, it is going to be headed straight to Capitol Hill. These angry Trump supporters ready to have their voices heard by lawmakers. Anderson?

COOPER: Boris, is there any sense of how many people you're talking about who are there?

SANCHEZ: It's really difficult to put a number on it. But just to give you some perspective. So, there's the crowd that you see behind me, which is rather sizable. It extends east and west, and then there's an overflow crowd that is enormous. It's hard to describe. And I wish we could turn the camera around but there are more reporters behind me. So, I don't think you would get a great perspective of it directly.

[11:05:03]

Behind where we are right now is the Washington monument. And there is a sea of Trump supporters there. Their flags are waving. A lot of red hats. As we've been here, it extends east, and I believe west as well from what I could tell. And there are still people showing up. There are still people, families, young kids, older folks, who are showing up to this event. So, the president's call for his supporters to come, clearly, they are playing into his game. Anderson?

COOPER: All right. Boris Sanchez, appreciate it.

In about two hours, Congress will meet to begin counting the Electoral College votes. Dozens of Republicans plan to object to the outcome of the elections in battleground states as they support the president's baseless accusations of voter fraud. Despite the unnecessary drama and wild accusations, Congress will certify Joe Biden's win.

CNN political director David Chalian is back with us. So, David, just walk us through what's going to happen with the certification process and the objections.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. It's actually really methodically laid out in law, but let's just say how we got here, Anderson. The election was November 3rd. Then the day after the election through December 13th, states certified the election results. On December 14th, you will remember we saw the electors gather in the 50 state capitals across the country and cast their electoral votes and sign them.

Those electoral votes arrived in Washington by December 23rd, including a set of them delivered directly to Vice President Pence, who presides over the ceremony.

This past Sunday, the new Congress was sworn in, the 117th. And today, Congress counts the electoral votes. Why? Because the law tells them to.

Here's U.S. code, Congress shall be in session on the sixth day of January succeeding every meeting of the electors. The Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives at the hour of 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon on that day and the president of the Senate -- that's Vice President Pence -- shall be their presiding officers.

Four members of Congress, two senators, two House members, both parties represented will be named tellers. They're going to sit in the front and actually tally up the electoral votes.

Here's how the counting process works. The tellers are going to read and tally the certificates of electoral votes. Vice President Pence will announce the final results. That is the thing that makes it official, the announcement of the vote, quote, "shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the person elected president and vice president." But as you mentioned, Anderson, we know there are going to be objections. We know Republicans are trying to show filthy to President Trump.

Here's how you object. It requires at least one House member and one senator, and it must be in writing.

The process works this way. That written objection gets submitted to the desk. When that happens, the joint session of the House and Senate together suspends. The House and Senate then go separately into their own chambers and debate the objections separately for up to two hours. After the debate, they vote to accept or reject the objection.

And here's how the debates work. Five minutes of speaking time per House member or senator. That's it. And they can only speak once.

After the two hours of the debate, the presiding officer in each chamber must put forward the main question, meaning must put forward for a vote whether or not the objection is agreed to or rejected. And it takes both chambers, the House and the Senate, must agree to the objection to throw out votes.

Remember, apart from the Georgia election last night, it's still Republican controlled Senate. But Mitch McConnell is against this. And it's a Democrat-controlled House. So, it's impossible to see how this would go through. It's not going to.

Mike Pence's role, purely ceremonial. This is what he's been trying to convince President Trump of. Look at Section 18 of the U.S. Code.

While the two Houses shall be in meeting as provided in this chapter, the president of the Senate shall have power to preserve order and no debate shall be allowed and no question shall be put by the presiding officer except to either House on a motion to withdraw. That's all he can do. I know Donald Trump wants him to do more. He can't.

Look at these two fascinating figures in history. They were in Mike Pence's role when they ran for president. In 1961, then Vice President Richard Nixon had to oversee the electoral count of the election - the presidential election. He lost to John Kennedy in 1960. And in 2001 Al Gore did it as vice president for the election - the presidential election. He lost to George W. Bush, Anderson? COOPER: Yes, a lot of people have lost elections and they've been adults about it. Clearly this president choosing to go a different route.

David Chalian, thanks very much. Stick around.

Erin?

BURNETT: All right. Let's go to the White House now speaking of President Trump where Kaitlan Collins is. So, Kaitlan, the president you know doing this morning what he has been doing already, lashing out on Twitter, ramping up his pressure on Vice President Pence to do something Pence cannot do.

[11:10:05]

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erin, he appears intent on taking down the vice president on his way out the door of the White House because he is continuing to lash out at him for basically that, something that Pence cannot control, cannot change, cannot overturn the outcome of the election today. But despite that, the president is insistent that he can. He has continued to lash out at him publicly.

But Erin, I'm also learning from sources that the president is also doing so privately. And he is telling people that he made Mike Pence and he saved Mike Pence's career by making him the vice president and he's saying that Mike Pence would be nothing without Donald Trump. That's what he's saying privately about someone who's been incredibly loyal to him over the last several years.

And of course, we are now expecting the president to go up. You can see the crowd forming behind me there on the National Mall, where the president is going to speak any moment now.

And so, of course, given the fact that the president has not stopped talking about Mike Pence, people around the president are expecting him to go after him during this speech.

Now, that remains to be seen what exactly he's going to say. We are seeing other people do that as well, including Rudy Giuliani who just spoke a few moments ago saying that they want to have trial by combat and insisting the vice president can take moves here.

That we noted a million times, he just simply cannot do. And he doesn't have the authority to do so. But you can see why the president is under this impression that he can, because he's hearing it from Rudy Giuliani, another Trump attorney, John Eastman, who's been working with the president. He also just spoke a few moments ago.

And so, what I'm told the vice president is doing is he's getting ready to go to Capitol Hill later for the inevitable. It's basically just bracing for what's going to happen today. He has acknowledged there's nothing else he can do after laying out carefully what he can do to the president over the last few days, trying to kind of lower the bar for what Trump should expect from him today. And so, he's just bracing himself. He knows it's going to be a crappy day for him, maybe one of the worst in his entire political career. But we should not you know let this go unmentioned that this is stunning that it's come to this. I know it's not that surprising. We've seen the president lash out at people before and ruin their political careers, like Jeff Sessions, his former attorney general. But he has never done so with the vice president in the way that we're seeing and potentially about to see more of in just a few moments from now.

BURNETT: All right. Put Pence in the situation, right? He may alienate the base and people want a new GOP. They don't want Pence. I mean it's incredible to be completely put out in purgatory.

All right. Kaitlan, thank you very much.

So, you know, now you see what's happening on Capitol Hill. I just want to go back to David Chalian at the magic wall. Because, David, you know this is all in the context of what we're going to see in Georgia.

Now, interesting, Kelly Loeffler just lost. She said she's going to object today on Capitol Hill. But we're still awaiting the formal call I know in the Ossoff/Perdue race, but you know Gabe Sterling making it very clear, the votes that are outstanding are in Democratic strongholds. Where are we right now and what do you see in terms of when we'll get the formal call?

CHALIAN: Yes. Let's start with the where are we here.

So, Jon Ossoff has 17,025 vote lead over David Perdue and that's what 98 percent of the vote in, Erin. Take a look here at the percentages though. Jon Ossoff's vote share, 50.2 percent, David Perdue 49.8 percent. That's a 0.4 percent difference.

In Georgia, the law is that if the race is within 0.5 percent margin, a candidate can request a recount. So Ossoff is clearly looking to get a lead that gets outside of that recount margin that a candidate can ask for.

You said, where is the vote still out? We are waiting from some more votes here in Fulton County, the most populous county where Atlanta is. You see, it's 95 percent reporting.

So, there's not that much vote left but 5 percent of the vote that's left in Fulton in a county that splits 72 percent for Ossoff and 28 percent for Perdue, that's going to pad the Ossoff total.

So too is it going to be next door in DeKalb County. It's at 95 percent. Again, that 5 percent you normally say, oh, that's not much left. But in a county that Ossoff wins, 83 percent to 17 percent, he's going to pad his total.

And if you look down in Chatham County out in Savannah, that's also 95 percent reporting, it's a 60/40 Ossoff county. And so, he can pad his total there. You want to see that lead get above a margin where a recount can be called before necessarily making a projection here. You also want to make sure, our decision desk, that we know everything we know. We learn everything we can about all of the outstanding votes.

I think Gabriel Sterling told you some 65,000 votes are outstanding. So, we need to make sure we know everything about them so that we have that level of certainty we need to actually make a projection in the race.

BURNETT: That's right. And to be accurate, which, of course, I know is our most important goal, but as you point out, you know there's military ballots that come in at the end of the week. You want to make sure that that possible number doesn't exceed the margin of victory, you know, all of those things.

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: Exactly.

BURNETT: Before the call -

CHALIAN: But this is trending in Ossoff's direction, Erin. No doubt about that.

[11:15:02]

BURNETT: For sure.

CHALIAN: Yes.

BURNETT: Absolutely.

OK. So, you know, David just mentioned DeKalb County. So, let's go there right now because it's an important one. Most of the results in. But of course, given the split, this is a place Ossoff can pad his totals.

So, Ryan Young is there following the process, the count going on in DeKalb. What's happening, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely. Look, we've been here since about 3:00 this morning. They stopped counting around 4:00 this morning. They were supposed to resume around 10:30 this morning. We just learned in the last five minutes or so there was some sort of delay. They told us they will start counting now at 11:30.

So, that's something that we just got from the inside as we walked in. The workers have shown up. They seem to be in their position. But as of right now, they have not started counting. We're told 11:30 is the timing they will start.

We've also been trying to get an update how many votes they have to count left here. That's not something that we're going to get to do. But we also noticed this large crowd that you can see behind me who showed up. They were chanting. They were trying to make their voices heard.

And so, I definitely wanted to stop and say, look, there's a lot of energy behind your group.

BRUCE MARKS, CEO AND FOUNDER, NACA: Absolutely.

YOUNG: Why are you guys here first of all?

MARKS: Because we're here to celebrate. And we're here to protect the vote. And we're here to say thank you to the hard workers who are inside. We don't want them to be intimidated. We want them to do their job. We want to make sure that every vote is counted.

And we've worked hard to get the vote out through NACA. We're a nonprofit home ownership organization, an advocacy organization, and we're very excited.

We turned Georgia blue!

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We did it! We did it!

And it's the first time we changed this country. It is amazing. We're so excited.

YOUNG: What has this been like in terms of the last 12 hours or so, in terms of what people have been feeling so far?

MARKS: We have not slept. I mean the staff here and the homeowners and you know the people from the community have been working. We've been here for months to get out the vote for the general election, now the runoff.

So, people are so excited. We haven't slept at all, like you haven't slept. Because we're so excited. We're looking at those numbers. But we want to say to the workers inside, thank you very much.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We want to make sure all of the votes are counted and we're so excited. We've changed this country. There are so many groups who have done this, we're here to support and celebrate.

YOUNG: My last question, if there's one thing that stood out to you, was there a moment where you felt pretty dark about what was going on in this country?

MARKS: Well, we were very proud because, you know, yes, it's been a dark you know four years. But you know everything is on Georgia. The focus is on Georgia. And we went door to door to tens of thousands of people saying, you got to participate, and people came out, their voices heard.

But we got to continue. We can't stop now. We got to continue to mobilize neighborhoods so that we have progressive politics in this country moving forward.

YOUNG: Thank you so much. MARKS: Thank you very much.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

YOUNG: So, these folks just showed up outside the door. First, they did a lap around the building and then they got out of the car. So, we had to stop them.

Erin, their energy is unbelievable. They really want their voices heard and now they're waiting for the count to happen.

BURNETT: Yes. You certainly feel that energy right there. Ryan Young, thank you.

YOUNG: Absolutely.

COOPER: The finger-pointing has, of course, begun.

Senior Republican official involved in both Georgia Senate races says of Trump, "Not since General Sherman has one man done as much damage to as many people, in as little time. No one in the history of our country turns out voters like Donald Trump. The problem is the overwhelming majority of them vote against him and anyone loosely affiliated with him."

Joining us now is a news member of the CNN family. CNN political commentator and former Republican senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake. Senator, welcome. Thank you so much for being with us.

JEFF FLAKE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Glad to be with you.

COOPER: Senator, what is your reaction to Republicans on the verge of losing this Senate?

FLAKE: Well, I think you said it. It's right. We're told that Trumpism was all about winning. I come from a state where we now have two Democratic senators. Georgia will have two Democratic senators. So, this is not a formula for winning. And it's kind of a fitting coda, I think, to the end of the Trump administration. I hope we can move beyond it quickly.

COOPER: Senator, if you can hold on, we have Georgia officials are just now making a statement. I want to bring that.

GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA VOTING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER: 73,829 advanced votes, the early voting in person. And 1,017,785, absentee by mail votes that have been counted. Now, with the margins we are seeing, obviously what the final outcomes will be dependent upon is a couple things.

The absentee ballots that came in on Tuesday that many counties checked in and finished up already but some of the larger counties have not yet. So, let's go from the top. I'll do this in the order of the largest amount of absentee ballots that we know have been checked in but not actually scanned, uploaded into the results yet. Number one is DeKalb County with 17,902. Let me throw every caveat in the world at this, counties are still putting stuff in. They're also scanning.

[11:20:03]

So, these numbers will be a little fluid during the day today. But these are the basic ones we have as of 10:00 a.m. this morning. The latest numbers we have available.

The next one down is Henry County at 9,078.

After that is DeKalb at 5,896.

Chatham at 5,318.

Fulton at 5,294.

Gwinnett at 5,068.

Thomas at 2,078.

Bryan at 1,515.

Meriwether at 1,325.

Dougherty at 1,200.

Fayette at 1,139.

And Forsyth at 752.

They trail off after that.

Clayton has some 528.

Lincoln 543.

Peach 524.

But you get the basics. The biggest buckets of them are from the metro area with a handful scattered about the state. We have requested of the counties -- we don't have a right to direct them. But we requested that they get all of the absentee ballots accounted for as in they received them. I know they're there and put into our voter registration system e-net as of 1:00 p.m. today. Most counties will make that deadline. Other ones are working diligently to get through that.

But again, I want to remind everybody, these folks are all tired. They've had a long day and a long week and a long month and a long year. But they're doing their best to get these results quickly. I know some people were surprised how quickly the results did come in. But that's the advantage of having three races on the ballots.

Again, another point of interest for people locally, or as we've seen both incumbent Republican senators fall behind in the vote count, the incumbent public service commissioner Lauren "Bubba" McDonald has continued to maintain his lead. And with the number of ballots out, it looks like he may be able to win as well but it looks like he will likely be within the margin of the recount, which is half a point. But we don't know until all of the ballots are in. And with that, I will take any questions.

Yes, Justin? Justin. Sorry, need more coffee.

QUESTION: Is there any evidence or any indication of any potential fraud or irregularities?

STERLING: No evidence of any irregularities. The biggest thing we've seen is from the president's fertile mind of finding fraud where none exists. We've seen a couple of other things, there was somebody put out a tweet that took a picture of shredded paper and said we're in Georgia and here are shredded ballots. So, that is the extent of the evidence we've seen. We've had a few things come in on the hotline that might be investigated. But again, we've seen nothing widespread. We've seen nothing that seems real in any way, shape or form quite honestly.

Ma'am?

QUESTION: Republicans have suffered a double defeat here with the presidential race and now apparently the two Senate races. Where do you think the blame lies within the Republican Party, specifically the northern GOP?

STERLING: I think you've heard this answer from me over the last 24 hours two times. President Donald J. Trump. Between him and a couple of other people who ran for office and didn't necessarily think it all the way through is where the outcomes could be. It all comes out of that.

When you say your vote doesn't count. Then you have people who are - have you laid your hands on say, these are my people who say don't come and vote, then you spark a civil war within a GOP that needs to be united to get through a tough fight like this in a state that's been trending from the point of view of Republicans from the other direction for years now.

I mean, let's remember Stacey Abrams, who has yet to concede the 2018 gubernatorial race came within 55,000 votes of winning that race.

So, we need a unified team with a unified message looking to the future and somebody pointed out, I believe it was a CNN commentator, if you look over the last two months, the president of the United States spent more time attacking Governor Kemp and Secretary Raffensperger than he did Raphael Warnock and senator-to-be, probably, Ossoff.

QUESTION: How does that sit with you as a Republican?

STERLING: It irritates me. What else do you have? QUESTION: What are the numbers that you've seen so far about those that are still outstanding in places that are located suggests about whether or not if Ossoff does win, could that be outside of the recount margin?

STERLING: Well, right now, we look at 60,470 that are available to come in for that. That number will go up as they continue to process ballots in the areas they're from. It makes it look like Jon Ossoff will likely have a margin outside of the half a percent to avoid a recount. And obviously Reverend Warnock is ahead of him right now. So, if Ossoff avoids that recount, so does Reverend Warnock.

QUESTION: And is there a breakdown of how many of these are potentially absentee ballots that we'll receive that day?

STERLING: These are all absentee. These are all absentees. We are -- one of the other we're asking for the counties is to get us in the provisional ballots. We know the provisional ballots are going to be in Fulton and DeKalb in the thousands because there's an issue where many Democrat turnout machines say go to any precinct.

[11:25:05]

So, people vote out a precinct. In this particular election it doesn't matter as much because every precinct had the same people in the ballot. But we got to make sure people get out of the habit of doing that because if you vote out of precinct in a regular election, you skip all of those races in the bottom. So, you're really disenfranchising voters when you train them to do that. It's a bad practice.

QUESTION: So, you're saying we don't have a read on how many right now total provisional ballots there are?

STERLING: No, we don't but we can spitball. It will probably be somewhere south of 10,000. Steve?

QUESTION: Are you concerned at all about blurring the lines between an election official and a pundit with some of the comments you made over the last 24 hours and the way that might be interpreted once the results are questioned by some who are unhappy?

STERLING: Yes, on occasion. But people ask my personal opinion. And this is one of those things where it's a weird blended position. I'm a well-known Republican. I can't really hide that fact. But I've tried to make sure a walk the line. And I think with the way this office has conducted itself, it would be a hell lot easier for us to go along with some of the presidential claims than actually stand up for the truth in these cases.

So, I understand some of you have that question. I have had to deal with it on Twitter. Last I checked I'm an American. And my First Amendment right to answer some of these things. But I try to set for it for my role here. And my role when I answer a specific political question. But you're right, but anybody in these positions, every human being alive has opinions. I just tend to be a little more honest about what I think of them. And I think that makes me do my job better and gives more credibility when it comes to it.

Yes?

QUESTION: On the military ballots, you said yesterday there are about 17,000 --

STERLING: We're down about 14,000 that are still outstanding. It's the military and overseas. I don't have breakdown between the two different types right now. But it's 14,000 available and to remind everybody, those that can be postmarked by yesterday and be received and accepted by Friday. But historically, it's going to be more than zero that come in, it's going to be a lot less than 14,000 that come in.

QUESTION: How do you --

STERLING: Hey, Mark, I didn't see you back there. Sorry.

QUESTION: We had very high Election Day turnout yesterday. Higher than the presidential election. Why do you think that is? What is the explanation for such high Election Day turnout after you know good but not that good early turnout?

STERLING: Well, a couple of things happened there. The primary in June, we had 880,000 show up. In the general election, we had 970,000 -- I'm spit balling here. I have a lot of numbers in my head right now. We had 1.3 million show up yesterday.

Part of that was, again, the president encouraging Republicans not to use mail or early vote options and some people would just going to skip it all together. I think what we saw happen on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, was that the areas that have seen depressed turnout compared to metro areas started to show up. And I think there's -- what happened in some partisan circles on the Republican side started dawning on them, oh, crap, we're going to lose this if we don't turnout.

So, there was a real big push to get people out the last day, but the Democrats did a very good job of banking their votes early and using the options that have been available to the Georgians for you know over a decade.

So, there's nothing new here. These are all tools that have been available. Coronavirus changed some voting patterns and behaviors. Georgia is historically an in-person voting state.

So, I think part of it is people getting used to doing it again. The threat of coronavirus as it's going up and some people perceive as going down. And just let me say this for the election workers and the launching of a new system.

This state, this office and these counties launched the largest new voting system in the history of the United States and did it in record time, executed it well in the middle of the pandemic and had record turnout in each and every election we saw. That is unprecedented. And I want to give a big thank you again to the election officials and poll workers and election workers who really worked their tails off to make a successful election for Georgians.

One of the things we haven't heard about in these elections, nobody was complaining about lines, nobody was saying they're disenfranchised. Everybody who wanted to vote, had an opportunity to vote, and we feel very proud of that fact.

QUESTION: And did you -- have you looked at whether Election Day turnout was higher than expected or lower than expected, and Republican or Democratic areas?

STERLING: I have not had an opportunity to do a breakdown. But we've been trying to really stay on the counties and work with them to get the - like I've said before, fast is good, accurate is better. Analysis can come later to see the specifics. We want to make sure we get the right results out to take away the opportunity for people to say that there was fraud and there's questions to be had about these things because these are the results, these are the ballots.

We have known since last week, since last Friday, that there were going to be 2,073,000 and some odd votes that were going to be cast in the advanced bucket because that was how many were cast. The president continues to say, oh, they're finding ballots. These were advance, come out of nowhere.

No, we have known that DeKalb County had 171,000 ballots since Friday evening, Saturday morning. So, the statements he keeps on putting out are incorrect and they undermine people's faith in the election process.

And again, this is a bipartisan problem. If you go back and do polls from 2016 of Democrat voters, there are over 50 percent that still believe Russians hacked voting machines to say they flipped votes for Donald Trump.