Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger visited the Hall County Election office on Wednesday to conduct a “health check” on election equipment before the Nov. 5 election.
Officials conducted logic and accuracy testing and stressed that the election process is accurate and transparent.
Raffensperger said the health check helps explain the process to voters and provides confidence in the system.
“As (former President Ronald) Reagan said, trust but verify, so we know that the counties are doing good work and we trust them, but we verify that process. So we can report back to the voters that the counties have done their work, we have checked their work, and we can verify that the work is done correctly,” Raffensperger said. “Kind of like belts and suspenders, to give voters that trust but verify it's about trust and verify, and that's what we're doing here, to give voters confidence at the end of the day.”
Tom Braatz, Hall County Elections Sr. Specialist said concerned citizens recently conducted a full-scale elective audit.
“Anybody who wants the results of those elective audits they are published on our website. So if you go to Hall County elections on the left-hand side and see the audit results, you'll see a report that was given internally to our board of elections, the county board of elections, and then the election audit results as part of that. So again, it's all transparent. We want everybody to see what we're seeing, and you make up your mind for yourself.”
Members of “Georgians for Constitutional Georgia” attended the event to advocate for paper ballots and paper poll pads.
President of Republican Women of Hall County Maribeth Kennedy said as a Georgia citizen she just wants fair and transparent elections.
“I think the state legislator has made some steps. Unfortunately, some of the rules that they passed aren't going into effect until 2026,” Kennedy said. "So we are here as constituents of the Secretary of State to ask him some questions, especially how he's going to secure our right to vote against illegals voting and eliminating our vote.”
Raffenperger said counting 5 million voter's paper ballots would be a time-consuming process.
“Well, they're a subset of a subset, and what they want at the end of the day is hand counting every single ballot, all 5 million ballots in the state of Georgia, and they want every ballot to be, you know, hand-marked. And then the General Assembly has written state law, and our job is to follow state laws. We follow the law, we follow the Constitution. And so if they want to, next session, come back to the General Assembly. That is their right, as a fellow Georgian.”
Raffensperger encouraged concerned citizens to be poll workers and go through training to learn the voting process. He added poll workers see the entire process firsthand.
Members of Raffenperger’s team declined to comment on the recent Oakwood City Council election controversy because it is an open investigation.
