Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger claimed the “weakest link in the chain” for democracy isn’t faulty voting machines but disinformation from candidates and nefarious activities by bad actors ready to create chaos at whatever cost.
Georgia’s top election official, who was thrust into the national spotlight after refusing to back down to pressure from former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s election results, made his comments at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
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“It’s the candidates and their consultants who don’t want to admit their candidate lost because that means, ‘I’m a bad consultant,'” he said. “Well, you should have run a better campaign for your candidate, or your candidate shouldn’t have said some of the dumb things that he did. But those are the consequences because voters are smart.”
Raffensperger turned into a verbal punching bag for Trump after he refused to change the state’s election results during an hourlong telephone call with the former president on Jan. 2, 2021.
At one point in the call, which was made public, Trump said he “wanted to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than [the 11,779 vote margin of defeat] we have, because we won the state.”
After Raffensperger’s refusal to meddle, Trump vowed to push him out of office and publicly backed rival Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA). Raffensperger easily defeated Hice, 51.9% to 33.8%. In the general election, Raffensperger beat his Democratic opponent, Bee Nguyen, 53.2% to 44.0%.
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Asked Thursday if election officials like him should be elected, Raffensperger said yes.
“When it comes to your priceless franchise to vote, I think that person should be elected because then you can decide if you want to reaffirm them. … When you have a state election board, you kind of wonder who’s in charge and who you can get mad at.”
