Supporters of President Donald Trump held what looked like a victory rally at the state Capitol in Atlanta Saturday afternoon, shortly after the Associated Press called the presidential race in favor of his rival, President-elect Joe Biden.
Several hundred gathered to wave flags, shout “Four more years!” and share conspiracy theories about how the election had been stolen, a claim put forward by Trump without evidence. Among them was Congresswoman-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“What we’re seeing right now is an election being stolen, and I’m not going to stand for it,” Greene said. “While many of our Republicans refuse to stand up and speak the truth, I refuse to cower down. I’m fighting hard for President Trump, I’m fighting hard for every vote to count in Georgia.”
“Every legal vote,” shouted members of the crowd.
Many demonstrators said they did not trust elections officials to count the ballots or media outlets to call results. Some said they believe court proceedings will show Trump the real winner.
“I see stuff on Twitter that makes me question the validity, the integrity of the election,” said Greg Leopold of Atlanta. “I don’t want to question the integrity of the election. If Biden won fairly, then Biden won fairly, and the most important thing is protecting our democracy, protecting the trust in the election. But there are millions and millions of people who do not trust the election because the media has been lying about Trump, basically since he became a politician, since he started running for president.”
In Georgia, county elections officials verify the count in their races and then send them to the Secretary of State’s office to certify the results.
A Georgia Secretary of State official offered reassurance that the election process is fair at a Thursday news conference inside the Capitol.
“The effort here is to make sure that everybody’s legal vote is counted properly and that the actual results are reflective of the voter’s intent,” Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system implementation manager.
Biden led Trump by about 7,000 votes in Georgia at the time of the rally, though the state had not yet been called.
The demonstration was peaceful and ended with a prayer, after which the bulk of participants left, singing “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Some Trump supporters remained at the Capitol, facing off against a crowd with Black Lives Matter and pro-Biden signs on the other side of the street.
The two sides antagonized each other briefly, with the Trump side shouting “Four more years” and the Biden side singing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”
“I think this is just getting out energy,” said Jan Rivers of Atlanta, who stood opposite the Trump supporters. “This is not achieving anything, this is getting out energy on both sides. I wanted to be here and I wanted to be present to visually show, no, we’re not going to let Trump stay in office even though he lost the election. But what needs to happen is one-on-one conversations where it’s not like this mob mentality, this mob energy.”
