Bradford Jay Raffensperger (born May 18, 1955)[1][2] is an American businessman, civil engineer, and politician serving as the secretary of state of Georgia since 2019.
Trump refused to accept defeat, made claims of fraud, and launched an unsuccessful protracted campaign to overturn the election results.
[15] During his campaign, Raffensperger "said he would reduce government bureaucracy, support voter ID laws and push for verifiable paper ballots when Georgia replaces its electronic voting machines.
[20] In 2019, Raffensperger fought 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, as she contested his action to remove 300,000 names from the voter registration rolls, and he won the case.
In 2021, he removed over 100,000 additional names from the Georgia rolls, depending in part on data received from ERIC, the national Electronic Registration Information Center.
The suit was dismissed in October 2020 by U.S. District Judge William M. Ray II, who ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing and the English-only mailings did not violate the Voting Rights Act.
[22] The number of Latinos eligible to vote in Georgia has expanded and turnout percentage has increased since 2016, exceeding countrywide participation rates of that ethnicity said Jerry Gonzalez, GALEO's executive director.
Voting rights groups had requested paper backups to prevent a risk of chaos on election day in case the tablets failed.
[27] To protect voting rights during the pandemic, Raffensperger directed the mailing of absentee (mail-in) ballot applications to all of Georgia's 6.9 million active registered voters for the state's June 2020 primary.
[28] Raffensperger did not send out mail-in ballot applications to every active registered voter in Georgia for the November 2020 general election, citing the cost of a mass mailing.
[34] Both Perdue and Loeffler were up for re-election but failed to achieve a majority of the vote, triggering a runoff election in Georgia against their Democratic opponents, which took place on January 5, 2021, and determined party control of the Senate.
Critics, including the voting rights group Coalition for Good Governance, described Raffensperger's decision to go forward with the hand recount being motivated by the political pressure he had received from Trump, and said it was not contemplated by Georgia law.
Though Graham denied the allegations, a separate Republican[39] election official who was also present in the call, Gabriel Sterling, confirmed Raffensperger's statement.
On November 20, Raffensperger certified the final vote totals, and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp issued the formal certification of the state's slate of electors.
[45] A recording of an hour-long phone call between President Donald Trump, Raffensperger, and several other state and federal officials on January 2, 2021, was obtained by The Washington Post and released the following day.
[57] On January 6, 2021, days after the call, a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol while the Congress was counting the electoral votes to formalize Biden's victory.
The article of impeachment adopted by the House notes the Raffensperger call, stating: "President Trump's conduct on January 6, 2021, followed his prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election.
[65] In early 2023, Georgia's state legislature denied a $25 million request by Raffensperger to implement the 2022 security update for Dominion Voting Systems machines before the 2024 elections, though the QR codes will be eliminated by 2026.
[66] According to POLITICO in June of 2023, Raffensperger insisted that the cybersecurity flaws identified in voting software were not significant and that no update was needed since the hackers would need physical access to the machines, over the objection of some cybersecurity experts who insist that a voter-verifiable print-out of the ballot and updating to the latest software are important steps that should have been taken for security reasons and to bolster confidence in the final tally.
[67] On July 29, 2024, Raffensberger added another way to cancel a voter's registration through an online portal, which groups like Fair Fight Action worried would be abused.