False Claims About 2020 Election Cast Shadow In Georgia

ATLANTA (AP) — For Donald Trump, it seems the 2020 presidential election is never over. That’s especially true in Georgia. The Republican president’s years of false claims that his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden was due to widespread fraud have shadowed many elections since in the presidential battleground. The issue is almost certain to play a role in a four-week runoff campaign as GOP voters choose nominees choose for governor, secretary of state and the U.S. Senate.  Among the contenders: one of Trump’s alternate electors in his attempt to overturn Biden’s win in the state, a Trump acolyte who won his first congressional race while saying Trump won in 2020 and a secretary of state hopeful who echoes Trump’s conspiracy theories as he vies to become Georgia’s top elections official. To be clear, Georgia’s presidential votes were counted three times, including once by hand, and each one affirmed Biden’s victory.  The primary came amid continued legal and political wrangling over how elections are managed in Fulton County — home to heavily Democratic Atlanta. Trump’s questioning of the Georgia results and longtime criticism of Fulton County elections were supercharged earlier this year when the FBI searched the county’s election office, seizing ballots and records from 2020.