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GA Secretary of State promises 2026 secure election
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger toured the Gwinnett County election operations center to highlight ballot security measures as early and absentee voting surpassed 2 million ballots statewide.
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - After more than two million voters cast their ballots early in Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has promised voters that Tuesday's midterm election will be secure.
What we know:
Raffensperger toured Gwinnett County’s election operations center Tuesday.
He promised dozens of audits — a minimum of seven in every county — and referenced a state audit finding Georgia’s voter rolls are 99.9 percent accurate.
"We'll give you short lines, quick results, photo ID, citizenship verification and then audit upon audit," said Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State. "We are having really strong turnout, about five to seven percent higher than we had back in 2022 with one less day of [early] voting."
The backstory:
Many Republicans have been skeptical of Georgia's election system, including President Trump, who famously called Raffensperger in 2021 to "find 11,780 votes."
President Trump, who lost the state in 2020 to former President Joe Biden, promised to send federal election monitors to several Georgia counties.
Raffensperger says the monitors are routine, and he is not worried about them.
Meanwhile, he says his office is monitoring social media for disinformation and threats of violence.
He said bomb threats made on Election Day in 2024 appeared to come from Russia.
"When they send out an email with a bomb threat and then below, it's all in Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Roman alphabet, you kind of know it's from Eastern Europe," Raffensperger told Fox 5's Rob DiRienzo, "Someplace with a different alphabet than ours."
Raffensperger said the state is not making changes to how data is stored following revelations about Anthropic AI bots accessing publicly available voting data.
By the numbers:
On Tuesday, the number of early and absentee voters across Georgia surpassed two million.
"I’m very impressed with what they're doing here in Gwinnett County," said Republican Former Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who sits on the bipartisan Georgia Election Integrity Task Force.
He said anyone with claims the election was rigged or stolen can take their evidence to court.
"[E]very single time that has happened, the courts have validated that the process was done."
What we don't know:
Election officials have not detailed how many additional early ballots will be submitted in Gwinnett County before the advance voting window closes, or if total statewide early voting will break all-time turnout marks.
What's next:
Election Day is one week away, and election workers across Georgia are making sure they are ahead of the timeline.
Officials at Gwinnett's Lawrenceville facility were prepping to dispatch voting booths and other electoral infrastructure across the county.
This will be Raffensperger's final November election in office, but he's not feeling sentimental, at least yet.
"At 10:00 [on election night], I hope to call the governor and let him know what the top of the ticket looks like, because he'll probably care about those kind of things," Raffensperger said.
The Source: This article is based on original reporting by FOX 5’s Rob DiRienzo. Information in this article was also sourced from the Georgia Secretary of State's Office and the Georgia Election Integrity Task Force.