science

Trump–Raffensperger phone call

Trump–Raffensperger phone call is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Trump–Raffensperger phone call rather than just read about it. In short: On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, U.S. president Donald Trump pressured Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" and overturn the U.S. election results from the 2020 presidential election. Trump had been defeated by Joe Biden in the election, but refused to accept the outcome, and made a months-long effort to overturn the results.

Key takeaways

Trump–Raffensperger phone call belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Trump–Raffensperger phone call to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Trump–Raffensperger phone call from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

On January 2, 2021, during an hour-long conference call, U.S. president Donald Trump pressured Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes" and overturn the U.S. election results from the 2020 presidential election. Trump had been defeated by Joe Biden in the election, but refused to accept the outcome, and made a months-long effort to overturn the results. Prior to the call to Raffensperger, Trump and his campaign spoke repeatedly to state and local officials in at least three states in which he had lost, urging them to recount votes, throw out some ballots, or replace the Democratic slate of electors with a Republican slate. Trump's call with Raffensperger was released by The Washington Post and other media outlets the next day, after Trump made a statement about the call on Twitter. According to the publicly released recording of the call and reports made by multiple news agencies, Trump attempted to pressure Raffensperger into reinvestigating the election results, despite being repeatedly told that there was no electoral error. Trump's repeated efforts to convince Raffensperger to find some basis to overturn the election results were perceived as pleading and threatening. At one point on the call, Trump told Raffensperger, "What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state." During the call, Trump falsely suggested that Raffensperger could have committed a criminal offense by refusing to overturn the state's election results. Legal experts have suggested that Trump's behavior and demands could have violated state and federal laws. On January 11, the phone call was cited in the article of impeachment in the second impeachment of Donald Trump introduced in the House of Representatives. Raffensperger's office opened a fact-finding and administrative investigation of potential election interference regarding Trump's efforts to overturn the results in Georgia, and Fulton County prosecutors opened a criminal investigation in February of the same year. On August 14, 2023, Trump, along with 18 co-defendants, was indicted in Fulton County on charges including racketeering and fraud. The phone call was a central element of the indictment.

Background

In the 2020 United States presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump. Trump and his campaign falsely claimed that voting fraud had cost him electoral victory in several states, including Georgia. Trump's claims were rejected and found to be baseless by numerous state and federal judges, elected officials, governors, and government agencies, including his own administration's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Trump's attempts to overturn the election cost taxpayers $519 million according to an analysis by The Washington Post, including $488 million in security fees during and after the U.S. Capitol attack, and $2.2 million in legal fees. Trump's many legal challenges to the election results were unsuccessful, but he repeatedly refused to accept the outcome of the election. Audits and hand recounts revealed no evidence of fraud or any irregularity that would have changed the election results. Biden was officially confirmed the winner of Georgia on November 19. In November and December, as his lawsuits were repeatedly rejected in court, Trump personally communicated with Republican local and state officials in at least three states: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. He talked in person or via phone to state legislators, state attorneys general, and governors, pressuring them to recount the votes, throw out some of the ballots, or get the state legislature to replace the elected Democratic slate of Electoral College members with a Republican slate of electors chosen by the legislature in order to overturn the election results in their states. In December he spoke by phone to the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, and made public demands on the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, both Republicans who had supported Trump in the election. He demanded that they reverse the Georgia election results, threatened them with political retaliation when they did not, strongly criticized them in speeches and tweets, and tweeted that Kemp should resign.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Trump–Raffensperger phone call

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Trump–Raffensperger phone call claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Trump–Raffensperger phone call before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Trump–Raffensperger phone call ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Trump–Raffensperger phone call

In research: Trump–Raffensperger phone call appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Trump–Raffensperger phone call in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Trump–Raffensperger phone call is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2021 controversies in the United States, 2021 in American politics, 2021 in Georgia (U.S. state), so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Trump–Raffensperger phone call outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Trump–Raffensperger phone call in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Trump–Raffensperger phone call means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Trump–Raffensperger phone call out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Trump–Raffensperger phone call in simple terms?

Why does Trump–Raffensperger phone call matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Trump–Raffensperger phone call?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Trump–Raffensperger phone call.