While Republican lawmakers in the state of Georgia have introduced numerous bills aimed at targeting voter fraud and improving election integrity, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R-Ga.) has not yet chosen to support any of them, as reported by The Hill.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Raffensperger announced that “once we see something that prioritizes the security and accessibility of elections, we’ll throw in support.” He falsely accused some of the bills of being “reactionary to a three month disinformation campaign that could have been prevented,” without explaining what exactly constituted such “disinformation.”
Several of the bills have already passed through at least one chamber of the Georgia legislature. One such bill that has passed in the state senate would require all voters to present either a driver’s license number, a state identification card number, or a photocopy of some other approved form of identification in order to be allowed to cast an absentee ballot. Another bill, which has been approved by a state senate subcommittee, would force voters to provide a legitimate reason for voting by absentee ballot rather than in-person.
The swath of new bills is in response to widespread allegations, backed by credible evidence, of voter fraud in the state in last November’s elections. On the night of the presidential election, President Donald Trump held a commanding lead in the initial returns of votes, before Joe Biden suddenly and suspiciously gained a lead in the following weeks. Georgia had been a reliably Republican state for decades, and all of its neighbors – including Florida to the south – voted much more strongly for President Trump than the Peach State.
Surveillance footage from at least one polling station in Atlanta showed poll workers ushering all other observers, including Republicans, out of the building before suddenly wheeling out massive suitcases full of ballots that had been hidden under the table. Such fraud is expected to have played a role in not only the presidential election, but also in the two Senate runoff elections in January, which were both narrowly won by the Democrats. Raffensperger, along with Governor Brian Kemp (R-Ga.), faced widespread criticism from Republicans, including President Trump, for failing to adequately tackle the fraud as it was taking place.