SAVANNAH — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday pushed back against Republican activists’ calls for the state to adopt hand-marked paper ballots for the 2024 elections.
Speaking to the Rotary Club of Savannah, Georgia’s top elections official challenged the notion that the state’s balloting system is not trusted by voters. Raffensperger’s comments come as election integrity groups across the state, including one in Savannah, lobby for a move to paper ballots in the interest of voting security.
More than 100 paper ballot advocates attended the State Election Board meeting on Aug. 1. At a Chatham County Board of Elections meeting last month, several dozen activists petitioned for paper ballots. One of those public speakers was physically removed by police officers after refusing the board chairman’s order to yield the floor.
“My No. 1 job is making sure that we have secure, accurate elections here in Georgia,” Raffensperger said. “We’ve done that.”
Raffensperger cited a poll conducted by the University of Georgia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that showed 98.9% of Georgia voters reporting no issues casting ballots in the 2022 midterm election. He also noted that Georgia is top-ranked for election integrity by the Bipartisan Election Policy Institute and No. 2 in rankings published by the Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning public policy organization.
Raffensperger’s comments echoed those he made to the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce last week when he called Georgia’s voting system “the model now” for secure elections.
“Over 99% of voters who showed up in 2022 had a great experience?” Raffensperger said. “That’s kind of like showing up at Chick-fil-A and not having a long wait.”
Election skeptics have targeted the state’s Dominion Voting Systems machines and Raffensperger since then-President Donald Trump questioned Georgia’s results following the 2020 vote, won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Several audits, including a hand recount, confirmed Biden’s victory.
Raffensperger, a Republican, refused a Trump request to “find” enough votes to swing Georgia’s result. The telephone interaction, which was tape recorded, is part of the evidence brought against Trump in a recent federal indictment on election interference charges.
During his remarks in Savannah on Monday, Raffensperger maintained the validity of the 2020 election results and the effectiveness of the voting machines. He said post-election audits showed incorrectly counted ballots accounted for about a 3,500-vote difference in an election where more than 5 million voters cast ballots.
Changing to hand-marked paper ballots would risk increasing the error rate to 5%, Raffensperger said, citing a recent three-day test of such a voting system in Arizona.
Raffensperger’s comments were positively received at the Savannah Rotary Club, with a crowd that included Chatham Elections Board members and current and former elected officials.
“After 2020 people thought the world was coming to an end,” former Savannah Mayor Eddie DeLoach said. “People with integrity are people we need. This man here has integrity, and we’re glad to have him where he is.”
About the Author
