Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was in Chicago Thursday speaking to national political reporters at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. Georgia’s top election official discussed overseeing the 2020 Georgia elections, the lessons he learned and some of the fallout from the chaos.
Asked by journalist John Harwood about the “weakest link in the chain” for American democracy today, Raffensperger said it isn’t voting machines or election officials, which former President Donald Trump wrongly blamed for “election fraud.” Instead, Raffensperger pointed to disinformation from candidates and bad actors.
“It’s the candidates and their consultants, who don’t want to admit their candidate lost because that means, ‘I’m a bad consultant,’” Raffensperger 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 the voters are smart.”
Asked if elections officials like him should be elected as candidates, 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.”