Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has acquired widespread reward for defending the integrity of his state’s election and refusing to go together with President Trump’s unprecedented makes an attempt to overturn the outcomes. This grew to become front-page information over the weekend when the Washington Submit revealed that Trump had known as Raffensperger and requested him to “discover 11,780 votes” to nullify Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, which Raffensperger refused to do.
However whereas he refutes Trump, Raffensperger has been extra quietly backing his social gathering’s efforts to make it tougher to vote, simply as Georgians forged their ballots in two important runoff elections Tuesday that may decide management of the Senate. Essentially the most vital measures might forestall Democrats from profitable future elections by focusing on the strategies which have led to report turnout in Georgia. After Black voters and Democrats used mail voting at a a lot greater price than white voters and Republicans within the November election, Georgia Republicans have vowed to cross sweeping restrictions on mail voting this 12 months. Raffensperger has endorsed these efforts, calling for an finish to no-excuse absentee voting, which 1.3 million Georgians utilized in November, and for voter ID necessities to be prolonged to mail ballots. “It opens the door for potential unlawful voting,” Raffensperger mentioned of mail voting, regardless that his personal knowledge—which he has repeatedly cited to defend the integrity of the November election from Trump’s assault—exhibits no proof of widespread voter fraud.
None of that may have an effect on Tuesday’s races, however different actions he’s taken would possibly. He has accused progressive voter registration teams that concentrate on registering younger voters and voters of shade of making an attempt to register ineligible voters in the course of the runoffs. He’s provided scant proof to again up these claims, which voting rights teams mentioned had been designed to dampen participation amongst these constituencies. He additionally backed efforts by conservative teams to problem the eligibility of 1000’s of voters in the course of the runoff elections. Below his tenure as secretary of state, a number of counties have closed polling locations, and minority voters pressured to attend eight occasions so long as whites to vote in the course of the state’s disastrous June presidential major.
Raffensperger’s actions are a part of a broader development amongst state-level Republican legislators and election officers, who’ve received plaudits for refusing to subvert the election outcomes however have nonetheless weaponized Trump’s discredited fraud claims in an effort to suggest new measures this 12 months limiting mail voting and early voting in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to forestall excessive Democratic turnout in future elections.
If Raffensperger actually wished to be a hero for democracy, he wouldn’t simply stand as much as Trump however disavow his social gathering’s total voter suppression campaign.