Georgia secretary of state opens investigation into Lin Wood over illegal voting allegations

Georgia’s secretary of state office has opened an investigation into whether pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood voted illegally in the November election. 

ABC’s Atlanta affiliate station, WSB-TV, first reported the investigation into Wood, which Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s (R) office later confirmed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, NPR and other news outlets. 

The investigation comes after Wood became one of the most prominent legal voices in former President Trump’s campaign to overturn election results in key states over unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. 

In an emailed statement to NBC News, the secretary of state’s office said the ongoing investigation is focused on whether Wood was “a legal resident when he voted in November in light of an email he sent to [WSB-TV reporter] Justin Gray saying he has been domiciled in South Carolina for several months.”

The office added that under Georgia state law, “if a person removes to another state with the intention of making it such person’s residence, such person shall be considered to have lost such person’s residence in this state.”

Raffensperger’s office did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for additional comment. 

In a statement sent to WSB-TV and other outlets Tuesday evening, Wood said he had “been a resident of the State of Georgia since 1955,” but had officially changed his residency to South Carolina on Monday. 

Wood added in the statement, “This is pure harassment by the Georgia Secretary of State because I have revealed credible evidence of election fraud on the part of Brad Raffensperger.”

“They’re trying to destroy me because I’m revealing a level of corruption from top to bottom,” Wood said in remarks to the Journal-Constitution. “Brad Raffensperger’s got a lot of problems with people who were not legitimate citizens of Georgia. I’m not one of them.”

Raffensperger has repeatedly refuted claims of voter fraud in Georgia, and denied requests by Trump in a Jan. 2 phone call to “find” more than 11,000 ballots to flip the Peach State’s election result. The Washington Post released excerpts of the call last month. 

Biden won the state of Georgia in November by more than 11,000 votes — the first time a Democrat has won in the reliably red state since 1992, when former President Clinton clinched a victory there.

State election records revealed that Wood voted in the presidential election during early in-person voting on Oct. 14, though he told WSB-TV that he did not vote in the January Senate runoff elections because he did not believe they were legitimate. 

Wood was one of several Trump loyalists removed from Twitter in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 pro-Trump mob attack at the Capitol, and the city of Detroit earlier that week called for Wood and other Trump attorneys to be disbarred over attempts to change the outcome of the presidential election.