Georgia’s beleaguered Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced his intent to run for reelection in 2022.
Raffensperger, the 66-year-old politician who gained national attention following the November elections, made the announcement on Tuesday when he spoke to the Rotary Club of Gwinnett County, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I still enjoy the job, and, yes, I’m running again,” he said during a question and answer portion of the event.
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Raffensperger, a Republican, drew the ire of much of his party and then-outgoing President Donald Trump for not going along with the former president’s efforts to change the outcome.
In a leaked phone call, Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” the votes necessary for him to win the state’s Electoral College votes.
Amid pressure from Trump, Raffensperger maintained the elections were conducted securely. In several counties, Georgia officials performed hand recounts, machine recounts, and an audit of signature matching, none of which changed the outcome.
Raffensperger will be going up against Trump-endorsed GOP Rep. Jody Hice for the Republican nomination for the Peach State’s secretary of state. Hice has repeated Trump’s claims of fraud and said his “top priority” will be “ensuring every Georgian’s legally cast ballot is counted in future elections.”
State Rep. Bee Nguyen, a Democrat, David Belle Isle, a Republican who lost to Raffensperger in the previous election cycle’s primary, and T.J. Hudson, a Republican who previously served as Treutlen County’s probate judge, have also joined the race.
Months after Georgia went blue for the first time in a presidential election in nearly 30 years and Democrats won back both Senate seats, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a new election bill into law on March 25, altering the way elections will be run in the state.
The law, which has led to boycotts, will require voters show an ID for an absentee ballot instead of using signature verification and will alter the timing of runoff elections, among other changes.
It will also present state officials with the authority to take over local election boards in certain circumstances and codified the use of drop boxes, which had only been approved for 2020 given the coronavirus but will be placed in early voting locations and can only be accessed during the business hours of the voting precinct.
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Dozens of Republican-controlled states are working to implement similar changes to their election law, while Democrats argue that those changes are both not necessary and detrimental. They, instead, advocate for increasing no-excuse voting by mail, early voting, and limiting voter ID.
Raffensperger has defended many parts of the bill but alleged the measures in the bill that will lessen his power were done in “retribution.”
