Raffensperger calls on Perdue to apologise to wife over death threats

'If he wants to call me, face to face, man to man, I'll talk to him,' says Georgia secretary of state

Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger has called for Republican Senate candidate David Perdue to apologise to his wife for alleged death threats she received in the wake of 3 November’s national election.

Following November’s election, which was won by President-elect Joe Biden in Georgia by around 12,000 votes, Donald Trump and several Republican figures refused to accept the result and made false claims about widespread voter fraud.

Mr Perdue and senator Kelly Loeffler, who are both running in Senate runoff elections taking place on Tuesday, called on Mr Raffensperger to resign, according to Business Insider.

The candidates claimed that because Mr Raffesnberger would not question the state’s results, he had mismanaged the election, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They provided no evidence for these claims.

Mr Raffensperger refused to resign, saying: “Let me start by saying that is not going to happen,” and adding: “Politics are involved in everything right now. If I was senator Perdue, I'd be irritated I was in a runoff.”

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, nearly two months after Mr Perdue called for him to resign, Mr Raffensperger asked the Senate candidate to apologise to his wife, who he claims was subject to death threats after his comments.

“Senator Perdue still owes my wife an apology for all the death threats she got after he asked for my resignation,” he told Fox News on Monday.

“I have not heard one peep from that man since. If he wants to call me, face to face, man to man, I'll talk to him, off the record, but he hasn't done that.”

During his appearance on Fox News on Monday, Mr Raffensperger referenced a phone call he received from Mr Trump over the weekend, where the president made numerous false claims about the election and demanded he “find” him enough votes to overturn his defeat.

The call was recorded by officials in Mr Raffensperger’s office, and was leaked to The Washington Post on Sunday evening.

Mr Trump’s demands and claims were dismissed by the officials during the hour-long phone call, while politicians called for the president to be impeached for asking for votes to be found to give him the win in Georgia.

Mr Raffensperger told NBC News that he does not know how the recording was released, but said that Georgia residents are “the better for it.”

He added: “Now everyone can listen to the whole one-hour eight-minute call with the president. But at the end of the day, what he said was not factually correct. And I want to make sure that people understand the facts.”

Speaking to Fox News, Mr Perdue criticised Mr Raffensperger for the tape and said that he should not have recorded Mr Trump.

“I guess I was raised differently,” Mr Perdue said. “To have a statewide elected official, regardless of party, tape without disclosing a conversation — private conversation — with the president of the United States, and then leaking it to the press is disgusting,” he added.

Mr Perdue and Ms Loeffler face Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and reverend Raphael Warnock in the Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Tuesday.

Mr Perdue faces Mr Ossoff, while Ms Loeffler is up against Mr Warnock, after no candidate got more than 50 per cent of the vote in either race in 3 November’s election.

The runoff elections will determine whether the Democrats or Republicans will hold the Senate at the start of Mr Biden’s presidency, as the GOP currently has 50 senators, while the Democrats hold 46 seats, but are boosted to 48 by the two independents who caucus with them.

The Republicans need to win just one of the two elections to hold the majority, while the Democrats need to win both to give vice-president elect Kamala Harris the deciding vote.