“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump said in one part of the call. Raffensperger responded, “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
Raffensperger has continued to defend his performance and remains committed to the idea that the election was conducted fairly and offered a warning to those who charged otherwise without evidence.
It was among the strongest public stands for election integrity taken by a Republican under immense pressure from Trump and his followers — and it wasn’t without consequences.
“This is not acceptable behavior to threaten the wives, the children, the family of people that work for the government or even the government workers,” he said. “They didn’t sign up for this.”
“Let me start by saying that is not going to happen. The voters of Georgia hired me, and the voters will be the one to fire me,” he said at the time in response to the calls for him to step down.
“As secretary of state, I’ll continue to fight every day to ensure fair elections in Georgia, that every legal vote counts and that illegal votes don’t count,” Raffensperger continued.
A business background
Raffensperger, who touts himself as a conservative Republican, took office in 2019. He had served two terms in the Georgia General Assembly in 2015-2019.
Raffensperger obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Western University and has a Master of Business Administration degree from Georgia State University, according to the Georgia secretary of state website.
A campaign website describes him as a structural engineer and founder of a steel company known as Tendon Systems. “As the CEO of a thriving company, Brad uses business principles to run the office of Georgia Secretary of State, including purchasing and deploying modern voting machines across the entire state that could be audited and verified, including a full recount by hand, if necessary,” the website says.
Brad and Tricia Raffensperger have been married for more than 45 years, according to his campaign website. The couple has three sons.
Running for reelection
Raffensperger has also supported a controversial law passed in the wake of Biden’s victory to impose new voting restrictions.
In an interview last year on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Raffensperger said that although elections were run “fairly, honestly and accurately,” the law, which limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water, was about addressing voter confidence in the election systems.
“At the end of the day, it has never been easier to vote in the state of Georgia, and we still have accessibility. We also have balanced that out with security,” he said.
