Lindsey Graham mocks calls for his resignation over election interference

Lindsey Graham has laughed off calls for him to resign after he reportedly pressured the Georgia secretary of state to throw out legally-cast ballots.

The South Carolina senator, one of Donald Trump's staunchest allies, was accused on Monday by Brad Raffensperger, the Republican in charge of Georgia's voting, of calling him and asking him to reject some ballots.

Ilhan Omar, congresswoman for Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib, representing Michigan, joined the chorus of condemnation and demanded Mr Graham resign.

"Lindsey Graham attempted to commit voter fraud. He can't get away with it," said Ms Tlaib said on Twitter on Wednesday. "Actions result in consequences. This unethical and possibly illegal action from a sitting U.S. Senator demands a swift consequence."

Ms Omar added: "It’s time for Lindsey Graham to submit his resignation."

The 65-year-old Republican shrugged off their criticism.

"I must be doing something right when the most radical liberal politicians and media pundits in America are calling for my resignation!" he said on Wednesday.

The day before, he had told Fox News' Sean Hannity: "I know what I talked to the secretary of state about, and it wasn’t for him to throw out ballots - that was beyond bizarre and ridiculous."

Georgia election officials expect to release a report on Thursday on a hand tally of the presidential race, and they have repeatedly said they expect it to affirm Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow lead over Mr Trump.

The hand tally of about five million votes stemmed from an audit required by a new state law, and was not in response to any suspected problems with the state’s results or an official recount request.  

The state has until Friday to certify results that have been certified and submitted by the counties.

Mr Graham acknowledged the pressure Mr Raffensperger is facing, but denied he pressured him to discount any votes.  

“I was talking about a system and how it works and to make sure we have confidence in it," he told Mr Hannity.

A second senior election official, who was reportedly on the call with Mr Raffensperger and Mr Graham, said that the way the senator posed the question could have been interpreted as asking for ballots to be rejected.

The official told MSNBC that Mr Graham had asked at what point ballots get rejected after signatures are not matching.

"What I heard was a discussion about absentee ballots and if there was a percentage of signatures that weren’t really, truly matching is there some point you get to, if someone could say 'Let’s throw out all these ballots,'" the official said.

"I could see how Senator Graham viewed it one way and Secretary Raffensperger viewed it one way, but our job in this state is to follow the law and follow the process."  

Mr Raffensperger told CBS News: "I explained our process, after it went through two sets of signature match, at that point they were separated.  

"But then Senator Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes and then throw out the ballots for counties who have the highest frequency error of signatures."

Mr Graham said the reason he had been in contact with other states, including Nevada, was an attempt to find a way to explain to Mr Trump how the signatures were verified.

"It’s to try and find out how do you deal with mail-in voting signature validation, to the president," he said.

Mr Trump is still refusing to concede the election.

States are in the process of certifying their vote tallies - Florida's was confirmed on Tuesday, but other states have deadlines over the next few weeks.  

On 14 December electors will gather to cast their votes in the electoral college, in accordance with their state's wishes.

Mr Trump is still attempting to fight in Pennsylvania and Michigan courts, and has sought a recount in Wisconsin.

His case in Arizona has been dropped after Mr Biden's margin of victory became too large to overturn.