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started, visit our website at student cam.org. washington jou. host: joining us from atlanta this morning is georgia, brad raffensperger. he has held that position since 2019. welcome to washington journal. guest: good morning. host: let me start with your background. you are a businessman, a structural engineer by trade. you own your own businesses. what first got you into georgia state politics? guest: i ran for city council. i could do that part-time and run my business. i was there for 3.5 years and i ran for an open seat in the statehouse and i served for two terms. host: are there issues in the state level that were important to you in those early races for you? guest: i saw what was going on nationally and was not pleased at the time. i thought what could i do and what can i do to give back? being on the city council,

roads, widening streets, things like that. make sure we have strong, public safety. things like that. and then the statehouse, which we do for all georgians. and as secretary of state, bringing in the paper ballot system and getting rid of the electronic system, which we did in record time. we had, last year, voting in a pandemic. at the end of the day, we had a fair and honest election last year. the paper ballot out everyone understand that the count was accurate. host: what were the challenges? you came into brian kim's administration -- brian kemp's ministration. what were the challenges in the balloting system? guest: we had two main issues. the federal judge came down with the ruling that you can't use the electronic machines ever again.

you have to have a verifiable paper ballot. also, we finished up the race, stacey abrams lost the race by nearly 55,000 votes. our office had nine blue suits from fair fight, fair count and all sorts of allied organizations with this narrative of a stolen election and voter suppression. fast-forward two years, we were prepared. we were not expecting them about voter fraud. we have been pushing back on both of them. host: you are joining us this morning, talking about your new book, integrity counts. why did you write the book? guest: to set the record straight. it is a very important story that has tremendous implications for american democracy. host: part of that book, in the book you wrote this. people have heard you say this a number of times about president trump. i voted for president trump. i am a lifelong conservative or publican with a proven voting

record to match. but, i could not do what he asked because the numbers just went there. my job as secretary of state is to oversee fair and honest elections for everyone. was i disappointed in the outcome? yes. could i change the outcome? no. what has been the ripple effect of you maintaining that position in the party, both there in georgia, and nationally? guest: i stood on the truth, i stood on the facts. and some people had a problem with that. many did not. what i am grateful for is all of the republicans that support me. it was a difficult and hard loss for us on our side of the aisle. they understand that you always believe in the rule of law and fight hard to protect the constitution. they understand. when i talked to some people these day, i hear from people who were so aligned with president trump and they wanted me to fudge the number and i just couldn't do that. host: what is your office doing

to prepare for the 2022 elections? guest: this past session, we passed the election act of 2021. we moved away from signature balloting and we moved to driver's license numbers. it is an objective. signature matching is subjective. we moved toward the driver's license number. it took three years for the general assembly to do that. now, we have taken that off the table. this is something they had been using in minnesota for over 10 years. they are going through the same process because it is a safe and secure way of having an objective measure for identifying your absentee ballot voters. host: is your anticipation that the turnout will be equal to or greater than the 2020 election,

based on the changes made in the 2021 georgia law? what is your thinking on that? guest: i don't think it will have any change on that. when i was on the ballot with governor kemp, -- 2020, we had 5 million. we will probably have somewhere between 4 million and 5 million. we have population growth. we will have strong turnout. sb 202 does not increase the ability for anyone to vote. now, we have 17 days of early voting, which is far more than they have in new york, new jersey and delaware. host: you have been a political representative on the local, and state. guest: my goal is getting my message out and working on reelection.

that is why i wrote integrity counts. it explains to everyone this is exactly what happened. all these allegations that were made, we responded with press conference after press conference. when someone has 80 million twitter followers and things get put out there, it is tough to fight that battle. it was whack a mole on a daily basis read here is a fact-based book. i included my 10 page letter that i sent to congress. congress can look at me and ask is this right? is this right? is this right? everything i said in january is correct. i said there were two dead people who voted. i believe we found two more, we are up to four. we never saw 5000 dead people. less than five. host: part of the book "integrity counts," the ninth chapter is called "the call." it is the transcript with the

call from president trump, mark meadows and people from your staff in georgia. you make annotations. what was your purpose in getting the entire call into that chapter? getting that entire transcript published? guest: i think it is important that, right there, you can read the entire conversation we had for one hour and 10 minutes. when i respond to president trump, president trump had several people. we don't know who else was on the call. they spoke into that. everyone's comments. it's out there, you can go ahead and go to the internet and ask to hear the audio. you can hear what was said and come to your own conclusions. host: brad raffensperger is our guest. we open -- we welcome your calls. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. and for independents and all

others, (202) 748-8002. if you are a georgia resident, that line is (202) 748-8003. i wanted to read just a bit from that ninth chapter, the call. president trump in that call says we have at least two or three, anywhere from 250,000 to 300,000 ballots that were dropped mysteriously. much of that had to do with fulton county. he also said another tremendous number, we will have an accurate number over the next few days with certified accountants. an accurate number will be given and it is in the 50's of thousands. that is people who went to vote and told they can't vote and told they can't go because they already voted. it is a very sad thing, said president trump read they walked out complaining. the numbers large, we will have it for you. but it is much more than the number of 11,779. brad, i think you agree with that, right? that's something i think

everyone -- at least that's a number everyone agrees on. you noted in your observation on this, the secretary of states office never received a report from certified accounts. that thousands had been turned away from the pole, -- if thousands have been turned away from the polls as trump described, surely one of them would have contacted our office. caller: we heard allegations but no one submitted data to that point. if people were turned away, we would have heard about it. the press would have heard about it. nothing was ever said about that. everyone that wanted to vote had the opportunity to vote. that is supported by the facts. host: what do you think it is about that phone call that most people get wrong? guest: i don't know. you have to ask people that actually listened to it. i received it. that's lack of the transcript in

there. that's why you can listen to the audio. people need to come to their own conclusions. what i would say is, in america, we need intellectual honesty. to get intellectual honesty, you have to have intellectual curiosity. do your own homework. my dad said don't believe everything in the paper. the numbers never lie. host: let's go to callers from brad raffensperger. we will hear from matthew in north carolina. go ahead. you are on the air. caller: how are you doing today? guest: good morning. caller: i like the last thing you said, that numbers never lie. and you like the facts. i was really interested in the conversation piece that you are putting in on how the election machines changed and they went from signature verification to, you said identification numbers on the drivers license? guest: with sp 202, in this

upcoming year, instead of using signature match on your absentee ballot application, we actually ask for your drivers license number, which connect you back to photo id. the reason that is so powerful, we know those are two unique identifiers. we know who you are. also, the department of drivers services is a robust assistantship -- citizenship check so that we can verify that you are a georgia resident. that is a big change going forward. there was a lot of questions about signature match. we did a signature match study. we have been sued by both democrats and republicans. it took three years for the general assembly to follow my advice. i'm glad they did. host: we will go to greg in midlothian, virginia, on the independent line. caller: i wanted to say that i have lived in foreign countries

for the past 20 something years and i have seen what happens when you don't have election integrity. so, i tell my students, i teach history, and i tell my students that election integrity is probably the most important right and responsibility that we have as americans. because, without that, you don't have a democracy. you don't have a republic. that has to be cherished and protected. my question for the guest is do you think that we are going to have election integrity in 2022 and 2024? because i'm concerned, very concerned, about that. thank you. guest: in georgia, we had election integrity. unfortunately, this was not our first rodeo. this is when i start losing audiences on the left side. they don't want to talk about stacey abrams but she set the table for 2020. she lost in 2018 by 55,000

votes. talk about that. -- i talk about that. she lost by the 5000 votes and she said were it not for voters set -- suppression. we had record turnout. people have plenty of opportunities to vote. they had, at that time, 16 days plus sunday voting in all of the major metropolitan areas. wendy of opportunities to vote and also election day. roll that forward to 2020 and we heard the other narrative about voter fraud. neither of them were supported by the facts. we pushed back on lawsuits from stacey abrams and we pushed back on trump. judges look for facts. they don't look for allegations that are not supported by facts. host: i want to ask you about the criminal prosecution that

might be possibly coming in georgia, the headline from the new york times saying a grand jury in georgia looms in trump inquiry as the house committee investigates the january 6 capital riots -- capitol riots. an atlanta district attorney is moving toward convening a special grand jury in her investigation of election interference on the former president and his allies, according to a person with direct knowledge of deliberations. secretary raffensperger, are they asking for your input or assistance in that case? guest: as it relates to the fulton county da, she has asked our office and requested documentation. we sent her records of any document we have. she has interviewed a few people, her investigators have. that is her investigation. you would have to ask her where she is with that. on january 6, they asked for some documentation, also.

they can make their decisions of where they want to go forward on that. i'm an engineer, not a lawyer. that gets into the weeds of what the lawyers are planning on doing. host: about january 6, you write in your book, "integrity counts," you said that january 6, recognizing congresses meeting, i drafted a letter to the georgia congressional delegation with a point by point rebuttal of the allegations that the outcome of the georgia vote was wrong. i signed the letter just afternoon and transmitted it to our represent us. a small stop the steal rally gathered outside the state capital and some of the participants carried assault rifles, with one of the protesters, a former ku klux klan leader, who leads american patriots usa, entered the capi l

ol unarmed, looking for me, the state patrol decided it would be best if i left. are you still under threat from people because of your actions in the 2020 election? guest: i'm not getting too many texts or phone calls. you get a few from time to time. but nothing to the magnitude that we saw during the postelection. that's what my january 6 looked like. we were working on getting that letter done and we did not realize what was going on in d.c. until i got home later and turned on the tv. i saw the mayhem that was going on. host: do you feel like members of the georgia delegation, the house delegation, listened to what you had to say in the letter you sent to them? guest: it's very interesting. they said everything was fair and above board. in the presidential race, --

he did that. that shows he is a double minded person. that is a pastor. he should know better. this will help set the table and tell you the story on what really happened. 28,000 georgians did not vote for anyone for the presidential top of the ticket. they skipped it. they skipped the democrat nominee, joseph biden, the republican nominee, and the libertarian nominee. in the rural areas of georgia, where the republican congressmen hold the seats, they got 33,000 more votes than president trump. those data points show us there is a tail off at the presidential. many if not all of the republican steakhouse

represented of and senators -- statehouse representatives and senators got higher votes than the president. host: thank you for telling about the pressure trump put on you. i'm not sure why you voted for trump since he displayed so little honesty and integrity during his presidency. guest: we all have choices to make. i was one of president trump's earlier supporters in 2016. i thought that what we needed was a change. we need to get back to -- i'm a pro low tax kind of guy. pro small business. deregulate the environment, let the free market be free. in 2020, i voted for him again. my family has given money to him. i've always voted for the republican team. i understand your question. i understand that. but, we also have to look at who our choices were. when hillary clinton ran in

2016, she called everyone that did not support her establishment philosophy, deplorable's. -- deplorables. i guess that included me. what we need to do going forward, is say how do we grow the party, how do we help unify people and pull people together? we can have our solid, conservative message but we don't have to call people names. when we look at the last time we had this movement of conservative fraud, ronald reagan let it. in his reelection, we won 49 states. it was a tremendous -- that he did. we saw that with glenn youngkin. i wish him well. host: you right -- wrote in your book about character. you said it is not complex, it is straightforward. if we don't have people of the highest character running for elective office, we will fight

disinformation, misinformation and deception. and the end result will be an erosion of public trust. you pointed to virginia. do you think that was an election where people voted more on character? republicans, anyway, more on character, and less about president trump's influence? guest: i think people were impressed with the character of when youngkin and parents believe they should be involved in education and they should be. it was a big message that he had. it attracted people on both sides of the aisle. character always is king. when we start having people who lift that up, that model of integrity, character, honesty, and civil discourse. even ronald reagan said you can be kind and it does not make you

soft. i learned -- i talked about that in my book. i learned a lot about kindness from my children. we can still be principled. both were african-american democrats, one from a funeral home, another was raised in the foster homes. we had respectable conversations. they did not vote for many of my bills and i did not vote for theirs. we can laugh about it and joke about it. we were trying to understand each other. so that there is some human capacity to understand each other prayed i think that is important. host: we go next to mark in ben salem, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. the question i have was on your recount, you did 15,000 votes. you found 450 in initial three party judges that said 450 did not vote. you went back and adjudicated them.

if you push that for 50 with 1.5 million, -- 450 with 1.5 million, 45,000 signatures do not match. 45,000 signatures do not match, hypothetically. how could you prove these people voted for whoever they did and adjudicate it? you couldn't. the anonymity part of it makes it so that you can't tell me not one of those votes, how they voted after they separate the ballots from the envelope, is that not correct? guest: we always have the secret ballot. that way people don't feel chorused by the union boss -- -- coerced. we had 15,000 ballots and they did a deep dive and they called every single one to verify that is who they were. what they found out is that two people out of the 15,000, it was

not correct. a spouse had done one. one had a health issue. 99.99% accuracy. if you project that across the entire state, there was never enough to overturn the result. that goes to the subjective nature. when i ran, i said we need to move away from signature match and move to driver's license number. that's what this is doing in minnesota for 10 years. it works for them, it works for us. red states, blue states, it will work for everyone. host: on the redline, this is james. caller: i want to thank you for being honest, open, and being a real republican. i also want to thank ms. cheney and the other person that is being criticized and ostracized

because of the political hate in this country, because a person lost. i also want to ask you this. do you think that this committee for the sixth of january, do you think those politicians that spew this hate should be called up, and let the american people decide who is telling a lie and who is telling the truth? because, if you have politicians , and i don't blame president donald trump, i blame the people that are backing him up. they know that they claim to be christians. they know that they have a soul and a spirit and the flesh.

we know the spirit belongs to god. if you are a politician and you forget about your soul and your spirit, you haven't forgot about the soul and the spirit. a lot of them left their soul and their spirit. i don't know if they chose to do that. but, i think you -- thank you for keeping your soul and your spirit intact. host: any,? guest: -- host: any comment? guest: those are our federal elected officials and they run their own show. that is their lane. my lane is making sure we have fair and honest elections in georgia. host: next in washington, it is peggy, on the democrat's line. go ahead. caller: hi. i just want to say thank you for your service to this country and your integrity. i just want to say if trump would have had the right people

in place during the 2020 election, we would have had a constitutional crisis. i'm afraid next time he or someone like him will do just that. host: ok. brad raffensperger? guest: i'm very hopeful about america. my wife and i, we travel all over the country. it doesn't matter if it is main or oregon -- maine or oregon, what i have found is people are all the same. they are good people. i have never doubted the goodness of american people. i'm very hopeful about america. going from one economic cycle to another, they are stressful. i understand that. never doubt the goodness of people. i believe most people are good and most people are kind. host: our guest is brad raffensperger. he is the georgia's secretary of

state. his book is titled "integrity counts." we open your calls -- we welcome your calls and commons. for democrats, (202) 748-8000. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. georgians, (202) 748-8003. a question for you from twitter. mailed ballots are foolish and unnecessary except for rare occasions. this person says voting must be in person. guest: to that point, no excuse absentee balloting was put in place in 2005 in georgia. the current speaker of the house supported it and voted for it. the current state party chairman supported and voted for it when

he was a state senator. it was signed into law by a republican governor. that is historical fact. i know that other states do mail-in ballots. in georgia, you have to request a ballot. when your application has been verified that it is you requesting it, you are sent the ballot. when you get about, you send it back to the election official. that is how it started with no excuse absentee voting. the general assembly has elected not to change that. host: how has the georgia 2021 election law changed early voting in your state? guest: we increased it by another day. we mandated all 159 counties have to have 17 days of early voting. monday through friday, 15 days. any county that wants to have sunday voting can continue to do so. host: let's hear from kathy in

kansas. go ahead. caller: yes. i was wondering. i'm a little confused. there was something on the new voting laws that is whenever a group of electors somehow allege fraud or something, they can go back and you can get a new group of electors to go to overturn something. how does that work? i also want to ask you, would you vote for trump again in 2024 if he runs, given all his hideousness and everything he has done to this country? guest: two your first question, i don't know what you are referring to. that is not georgia state law and i don't know of any other state doing that. that is something, i don't know exactly what you are describing. people cannot come in in any

political party and overturn the will of the people in georgia. nothing has changed to that extent. 2024 is a long way off. i am sure there will be lots of people running for president. we will see who those people are. then we all can make our decisions on who we support at the end of the day. host: from georgia, this is carl. caller: thank you for taking my call and thank you for c-span. much thanks to mr. raffensperger and all the good work he has done. i know is has been a trying time for him. i worked for a mid-georgia radio station. there were videos of poll workers after midnight, up to 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning, november 2 and 3 that uncovered boxes of votes and ballots that were under tables.

i looked into this myself. a lot of people have asked questions about this. i think they can process, correct me if i'm wrong, 3000 to 4000 ballots per our. what exactly was going on with that? i have never heard an explanation of what went on with that. why were they keeping boxes and boxes of ballots underneath a black tablecloth? why did they stay over from 1:00 to 8:00 the next morning counting these balance? if you could address this, i would appreciate it. guest: i think you are referring to state farm video. we will have to unpack that. it takes time. in the morning, those boxes come official ballot boxes, it was all under video surveillance. the boxes were opened, emptied, closed, and zip tied, and

secured. they were then put underneath the tables. the reason they were there is they had stacks of absentee ballots. they knew they would not be able to count all of those that election night. around 10:30 on election night, they went ahead because they thought they were done for the evening. the election director called them and said you are not done yet. you need to staff until at least 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. prior to that, what they had started to do was pull out those boxes, open them up, and put the un-scanned balance -- ballots in the boxes, zip tie them, and put them under. you see them pulling out the ballots they put in a few minutes earlier. rudy giuliani came down to a state senate meeting and showed the video out of sequence and made a narrative that they were finding these balance and stuffing the boxes.

we brought in our investigator and the georgia bureau of investigation and fbi. everyone looked at the full tape and they said nothing is there. that went into their report. the former attorney for the northern district resigned. they brought in the attorney for the southern district as acting director. they both said there was nothing there. what had gotten out on fox news, and all my contractor friends work calling me about it, looking at what rudy giuliani was putting out, a false narrative. that is what we were facing from day one. we are still fighting it over a year later and you're asking me that. we responded to that immediately. it has been totally debunked. it is one of those urban legends

out there that makes it difficult. talk about that in my book so you have the full information about what happened and did not happen in state farm. host: let's hear from connecticut, good morning. mary lou, good morning. we will hear from nina next in florida, democrats line. caller: good morning. i have a couple of points. number one, i don't even know why after a year that your gentleman said we are even talking about this still. i don't ever want to go through this again. i am very disappointed in how it all went down. secondly, the voter i.d. thing to me is not suppressive. i have gotten two vaccines for covid.

i have had to show my i.d. twice now. i don't know why it is voter suppression to not be able to show your i.d. when you go and vote. i don't even know if you have anything. also, did stacy ever conceived her election? not that it matters, but i am tired of last year's stuff. i'm ready to get on with our lives with future politics. thank you. host: brad raffensperger? guest: i think most of us are ready to move on. stacy evans has still not conceded. she is still playing that narrative. 2014, they poll tested the word "voter suppression" and found it is a great way to motivate people to get out and vote. she has not conceded that. we are all tired of that.

that is why i put up my book, to start putting this to bed, that this is the facts of what happened in the election. there were not dead people, there were not underage people. if people want to know the truth, they can read it and look at it. i am willing to debate the points. as a republican, i am disappointed. the fact is president trump did come up short in georgia. host: how may votes did brian kemp win by ultimately? guest: nearly 55,000 votes. host: larry next from alexandria-virginia. caller: a few quick questions, if you can say it where he was born and raised in how he became a millionaire through his construction company. has he read molly hemingway's book?

she showed strong reason to question the wood gallery of more votes than the margin won by biden in georgia. i wonder if he could say whether she is a liar and talk about himself a little bit. thank you. guest: i forget exactly where you are from, but i talk about in my book. my dad was in the construction industry. we lived in upstate new york in niagara falls for two years and then moved to pennsylvania for first grade through fourth grade. then my dad got transferred to toronto. moved up there. that is where i met trish in high school. we moved back to the states when i graduated from engineering school. have not been back but to visit family. we have lived in different parts

of the country. georgia has been our home since 1982. first business was a daycare center with tricia. then left and had a partner for several years. i do specialty contracting. engineering is what i leaned into. it helps me in this job because it is very fact-based. in the office of the secretary of state, it is not just about elections. it is also about corporation formation. last year, we had record in corporation formation which is awesome. we have a lot of budding entrepreneurs who want to build corporations. we have licensing for structural engineers, nursing, electricians, plumbers, and folks like that. i want to do what i can to streamline licensing to reduce paperwork burdens. i have not read molly hemingway's book, but i will take a look at it. host: a big push is being made on capitol hill to pass voting

reform rights legislation. the john lewis voting rights bill among those. what is your view? guest: i don't support it for several reasons. i don't support same-day registration. that is a recipe for voting day mayhem. all of a sudden, people show up and say i would like to register to vote. now, you have lines around the corner. we have worked hard keeping lines shorter than one hour. what do you do when 100 people show up and you have to register them? the counties will not be able to handle that. you're taking away photo i.d. and seeing people can sign an affidavit. that opens the door for fraud. also, it opens the door for noncitizen voting. we already have people in other states letting noncitizens vote. i believe the only people that

should be voting in elections are american citizens. host: let's go to gary in new york on the independent line. caller: good morning. i would like to ask two questions. how come all the states are not the same in voting? in the last major election, vegas was allowed to vote two days after tuesday. how come every state does not open at 6:00 in the morning and close at 9:00? my second question or comment, i would like to see estate representative or federal representative declared the winner before the guy makes his victory speech because you hear news outlets saying they have declared the winner. the guys making a victory speech and the other guy don't concede yet because he does not say it is official. i would like to have it official

when they say he is the winner and they make the speech. guest: our federal constitution says this has been delegated back to individual states through their general assemblies, so the states write the laws. each state does what their citizens want. on the west coast, they do something. new hampshire does what they do. in georgia, we have 17 days of early voting plus two days of sunday voting for any county that wants. our elections typically go from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on election day. in atlanta, they go up to 8:00 p.m. even in the state of georgia, we have that variety. every state is different. every state makes the rules. it is a decentralized approach. one of the strengths of the system is after the general assembly passes the law, it is the local precincts that run the election.

the precinct workers are your neighbors that you see at the grocery store, at church, at the soccer and baseball fields. those are your neighbors. when they walk that line of integrity as your fellow neighbors, you know you can trust what they are trying to do. they are working hard to make sure you have a fair and honest election at the precinct level. they will flip those results to the county. the county reports to the state. and then, the state reports those. june the 2020 election, people wanted us to accept absentee ballots up to three days after. we took that to the appeals court and prevailed that every ballot has to be in by 7:00. it should be the same for all other forms of voting. host: in georgia, what is the process of the state informing the media of the vote count? guest: we post it and have our

results. we are not declaring winners and losers. we say with 60%, 80% reporting, these are the results. the county will give us their results typically by friday, the latest, the monday after the tuesday election. that is when we begin the process of certifying elections. host: in terms of a presidential election, would you support making the presidential election a national holiday? guest: well, companies already give employees time off. in georgia, we have 17 days. there are plenty of opportunities to vote. i think that is plenty of time. i don't think we need that happen. if you can get that through the federal government, i think they have bitten off more than they can chew right now and they need to step back and work on bigger things. the biggest issue in georgia is

the in the raf 1993.

what did you make of the effort to honor the vote by the arizona senate, the 2020 vote, and is there a move afoot in georgia to do a similar thing? guest: well, if you look at what we've done in georgia, people talk about what a frantic audit, but we did a 100% hand recount.

we hand-recounted those and verify the original results come and scanned it through a final time and that was similar to the other two counts. we took a statistically significant sample size of the machines that were used to verify that they hadn't had anything done to them and that the counts were accurate. we did a signature matches study in cobb county, university of georgia right now is doing a statewide audit study. we have done studies like that. what happened in arizona at the end of the day, president biden got more votes come and that was president trump's people that were doing that ninja audit. hopefully that would put it to bed. i know this ups people understand, the three data points i gave you earlier -- 20,000 georgians didn't vote for anyone for the david perdue got 20,000 more votes than president

trump. the republican congressman got 32,000 more votes than president trump. that tells the story right there. that is what happened. host: we will go to our georgia line next. caller: hello? host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: i voted, and the second time i went down, i asked the lady -- i looked at my paperwork and i backed up and said, wait a minute, there is no check where i voted -- >> ladies and gentlemen, having asked you to take your seats, i ask you now to please rise and join with me in pledging allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.