Transcript: Brad Raffensperger on

The following is a transcript of an interview with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 20, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. Welcome back to Face The Nation. 

GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE BRAD RAFFENSPERGER:  Good Morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You just heard the senator from Georgia’s comments that high turnout does not prove there is a lack of voter suppression in your state. He pointed to that failed state election board attempt to change election rules as sort of proof of intent there. How do you respond to that? And how do you shore up confidence in your state’s system? 

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: Well it’s actually very sad to hear what he said, but he’s been handpicked by Stacey Abrams when he ran several years ago, and she is actually the founder of the election denial movement. She lost back in 2018 by 55,000 votes, and then when we passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021 she said it was Jim Crow 2.0. But what you’ve seen in 2022 election and this election is record turnout. We now have photo ID for all forms of voting. People were concerned about signature match. We’d actually been sued by the Democrat Party and the Republican Party questioning you know, the validity of signature match. So we added that, layered that on top, you know, of we added photo idea on top of signature match, so that people know we were identifying who those voters are. And then you look at the turnout, we’re almost pushing 1.4 million who’ve already voted early or who we’ve accepted their absentee ballots. We’re probably gonna see a record turnout, early voting, probably 65 maybe 70% of all Georgians are going to vote that way, but they have a free will choice on how to vote. As it relates to the state election board rules. I never supported any of those I was very vocal about on day one, and they were ruled unconstitutional. They were shut down. But both Republican counties, two Republican controlled boards and two election boards actually joined those suits and fought against those state election board. So it’s actually very easy to vote. We have photo ID, we verify citizenship, and we have record turnout. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, there’s also doubt on the Republican side of the ledger. As you know, your party is not a monolith, and Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is claiming fraud is underway in Whitfield County. She said Dominion voting machines were flipping votes. The county board said there was just one case of a printed ballot not reflecting a voter’s selection. And then one of your colleagues said this was just human user error. So as the state’s top election official, have you seen any evidence of fraud?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER:  No. And what happened with Whitfield County was the lady thought she had pressed a certain, you know, selection, and then when she printed out the ballot, she noted that, she she saw that, and so then she made them aware of it, and it got corrected. And then it got blown out of proportion by people that like to use, you know, Twitter and other forms of social media. But we’re going to respond quickly to these sorts of things in 2024 because it’s not supported by the facts. The equipment’s working. We’ve done all sorts of audits, you know, since the last election, and coming up to this election. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well it wasn’t just some people. It was the elected representative for that district, the Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said that. But, I want to ask you about another thing, because we, I think it’s important to level-set for people at home about what is happening with this election. As I understand it, nearly all votes cast in this upcoming election will be recorded on paper. Last night-

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: -Absolutely 100% will be. Its actually security paper with the state seal on it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, important point to establish, because yesterday, President Trump said something that implies that, because it can take time to tabulate votes, there might be something nefarious here. Take a listen. 

[FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SOT]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They spend all this money on machines, and then they announce, we expect to have the results like seven days after the election. If you had paper ballots, you get them at 10 o’clock. France went to paper because what we did didn’t work.

[END SOT]

MARGARET BRENNAN: He’s pointing to a lack of paper ballots as a problem here. Is he accurately describing what’s happening and how long will it take to tabulate votes?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: In Georgia, In Georgia, 100% of all the votes cast will be on a paper ballot. But actually nationwide, it’s going to be over 96 to 97% of all voting in America will be on paper ballots. But we also just put into law this year with SB 189 that all early votes and all early accepted ballots, they all will have to have their results reported by 8pm. That’s 70, maybe even 75% of all the vote totals will be reported no later than 8pm on election night.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Won’t take seven days to tabulate votes, as he said?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: Absolutely not. What we will be waiting for is the overseas ballots that come in no later than Friday, and so those will then be the final numbers. And we’ll just see if that makes the difference in the total vote totals. I understand we’re very competitive, and that’s why we’ve done everything since day one to make sure we have fast, accurate and secure elections for all my voters here in Georgia.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You are a Republican, you have said in the past. You supported Donald Trump in 2016 and in 2020. You famously refused his attempts to overturn election results in your state after the 2020 election for the record this year. If the presidential candidate of the other party wins, will you enforce election certification for that winner?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: I’m going to make sure that whoever wins this race, that is what gets certified. I’m going to follow the law and follow the Constitution. I’m going to do my job, and that’s what the people of Georgia have elected me to do. I represent the voters of Georgia.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So at a rally in August, Donald Trump publicly praised those state board of election officials we talked about earlier, three of them who were there as his supporters present at the rally. He called them pitbulls fighting for transparency and victory. And he said this,

[ FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SOT]

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Your Governor Kemp, and Raffensperger are doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win. That- what are they doing? I don’t know. They got something in mind.

[END SOT]

MARGARET BRENNAN: He’s talking about you. This sounds like an attempt to influence election officials. Does this cross a line?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, it doesn’t influence me, because everything we’ve done from House Bill 316, back in 2019. SB, 202, and 2021. and SB, 189, everything we’ve done is to shore up voters concerned, shore up security, but also we are making sure that the lines that you know Senator Warnock just mentioned, there’s state law now lines have to be shorter than one hour on election day, and we track it. And the average wait time in 2022 was actually three minutes, and sometimes got down to two minutes. And even during this early voting period, lines we’ve been seeing reported at early vote centers, but lines have been less than an hour. But you also get checked in with the electronic poll pads in less than two minutes. I got checked in this past week with my wife. We got checked in less than 47 seconds. I timed it. Pretty amazing. 

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Raffensperger will be watching your battleground state closely. Good luck. We’ll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.