Brad Raffensperger Slams Biden and Sen. Warnock for Spreading Lies About Voter Suppression in Georgia

Brad Raffensperger criticized reelected Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and his Democratic allies for being the most recent perpetrators of spreading misinformation about voter suppression in Georgia.

The Georgia secretary of state said in an opinion piece to the Wall Street Journal that he has to spend much of his time “shooting down false claims” about the state’s election process that “usually come from losers.” He cited both former President Donald Trump and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for blaming their losses on the Georgia electoral system.

“For Donald Trump and his supporters, it was tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots that were supposedly cast but somehow never turned up,” he wrote. “For Stacey Abrams and hers, it was tens of thousands of voters who were suppressed, not one of whom came forward during her three-year ‘landmark’ lawsuit.”

Raffensperger said Warnock and President Joe Biden are the latest people to use voter suppression as a campaign tool. In early November, Biden referred to Georgia’s new election law, which placed new restrictions on voting by mail and greater controls on how elections operate, as “Jim Crow 2.0.”

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“During his victory speech, Mr. Warnock stated: ‘Just because [voters] endured the rain and cold and all kinds of tricks in order to vote, doesn’t mean that voter suppression does not exist,'” Raffensperger wrote.

Raffensperger said of the speech: “I thought I had heard every conspiracy theory there was after the 2020 election, but the idea that Republicans control the weather to make it harder for Democrats to vote is a new one.”

He added that he has “pity” for the Northeastern blue states that regularly vote in the cold with less early voting than Georgia. The Peach State began early voting on Oct. 17.

Raffensperger said Warnock’s referral to “all kinds of other tricks” simply describes a “common-sense requirement of photo ID” for all forms of voting, a rule that the secretary of state claims Warnock supported overturning through a federal takeover of elections.

“Messrs. Warnock’s and Biden’s stolen-election claims would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous to public trust in elections,” Raffensperger said.

Early voting in the Georgia runoff between Warnock and Republican candidate Herschel Walker also sparked conflict among Democrats and Republicans. Democrats believed that Georgia’s GOP was spreading misinformation by stating that voting was not allowed on Nov. 26, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, due to state law. On the other side, Raffensperger said Democrats opposed an extra Saturday of early voting, provisions prohibiting lines longer than an hour, and adding absentee-ballot drop boxes to the Georgia code.

“What was the result of all this ‘voter suppression’? Record turnout in election after election and calls from Mr. Biden to move Georgia’s primary up in the calendar to make it more influential in his re-election bid,” Raffensperger wrote. “He doesn’t believe his own claims.”

With early voting beginning on Oct. 17, over 1 million voters had placed their ballots by Oct. 26, shattering early voting records for the state. While several politicians and media outlets have declared the Georgia runoffs as an attempt to “dilute Black power,” Raffensperger said, the runoffs proved Georgia black voters were “overrepresented” and lost fewer general election voters than any other demographic.

“Mr. Warnock, Mr. Biden and their allies in the media — like Mr. Trump and Ms. Abrams before them — knew all along that their claims were ridiculous,” Raffensperger said. “Evidently they think divisive rhetoric is a good get-out-the-vote strategy, no matter how corrosive it is to democracy.”

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Warnock won reelection in the runoff with 51.4% of the vote, compared to Walker’s 48.6%. Walker was plagued with several controversies that prevented his win, including his family and stance on abortion, his mental health, and an endorsement from Trump. Democrats used Walker’s questionable fit for office to their advantage in both the 2022 general and runoff elections.