Trump-endorsed anti-voter fraud crusader says he and his friends committed voter fraud

A candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump claimed that he tried to commit voter fraud, but did not provide any evidence that such fraud is an actual issue.

Georgia State Sen. Greg Dolezal, the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, told the Charlie Kirk Show in a February broadcast only recently discovered that he and “a number of friends” submitted fraudulent mail-in ballot applications that included forms signed by children. Their goal was to prove that they received ballots in return to prove that Georgia’s system facilitates fraud.

Notably, Dolezal did not furnish any evidence to verify his claims.

“Earlier this year, Dolezal introduced Senate Bill 568 (SB 568), a proposal that would have assigned early voters to a single location, required voters to use hand-marked paper ballots and expanded the public release of voter information,” Democracy Docket reported. “While that bill failed two votes short of the majority needed, Dolezal has continued attempting to revive Republicans’ push to overhaul Georgia’s elections.”

They added, “During a special legislative session Saturday, Dolezal proposed an amendment to an election bill that would require counties to manually recount every voter cast in the top two races on a ballot before certifying an election. The GOP-controlled Senate approved the amended bill and the House is considering the measure Monday. If passed, the recount requirement would apply to the races for governor and U.S. Senate in November.”

In his appearance on the Charlie Kirk Show, Dolezal said that “the way you get an absentee ballot is you would sign your name to a ballot request form, send it in, and they’d send you a ballot. They’re supposed to check the signatures. Well, we know essentially that they didn’t check the signatures because myself and a number of friends botched our signatures, had kids sign signatures, do all that, send our ballots in the ballot request forms, and in every case, we got a ballot back.”

He did not identify the friends who helped him, elaborate on how voters names were supposedly swapped, explain how the effort was organized or discuss if any of the ballots issues were completed, cast or counted.

“So, yes, we do have essentially a Republican, governor or secretary of state, General Assembly,” Dolezal said. “We’ve moved the needle a good bit. We did move on voter ID, and we have passed some good things, but there has been really no interest in looking at what happened in 2020.”

Democracy experts argue that Trump is trying to spread misinformation about voter fraud so he can falsely claim that any election lost by Republicans was stolen. He falsely claimed that the 2016 Iowa GOP caucuses were stolen when he lost them, that he actually won the 2016 presidential election popular vote when he did not and that he won the 2020 presidential election when he did not. On that last occasion, he attempted a coup after being defeated by then-former Vice President Joe Biden.

Dan Vicuña, Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at Common Cause, told AlterNet earlier this month that Trump is trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections by sowing doubts about the validity of likely Democratic victories.

“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”

He added, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.”