‘Irresponsible and silly.’ Raffensperger visits Columbus, defends withholding voter data
While visiting Columbus on Friday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger argued he shared all the voter information he legally could give the U.S. Department of Justice and accused some Georgia Republicans in the state legislature of “playing politics.”
Raffensperger, who is running for the Republican nomination in the gubernatorial election, appeared in Muscogee County to deliver the opening remarks at the Georgia Alliance for School Resource Officers and Educators Executive Seminar in the Columbus Convention and Trade Center.
The event drew his interest because they would be discussing technology that would make it easier to monitor schools, which also serve as election precinct locations, he told the Ledger-Enquirer.
“We’re talking about school safety,” Raffensperger said. “That just also fits in with helping me learn to be a more effective government to make sure you have safe communities and safe schools for your kids.”
Protect Georgia residents’ information
When asked about the DOJ filing a lawsuit to force him to provide detailed voter information, including Georgia residents’ full name, date of birth, residential address, state driver’s license number or the last four digits of their social security number, Raffensperger argued he already complied with the law.
“I believe in following the law, following the Constitution,” he said. “The state senate, though, is very, very irresponsible and silly.”
Earlier this week, Georgia Republican legislators introduced a resolution demanding that Raffensperger comply with the DOJ’s request. Raffensperger accuses these members of his own party of “playing politics.”
He described the personal details about Georgia residents that the DOJ wants him to disclose as “everything that an identity thief could use.”
“And they also said in their letter to us that they were going to give this to an unnamed third-party vendor,” Raffensperger said. “We don’t know who that person is. We don’t know what kind of security protocols there will be. But, at the end of the day, state law does not allow us to release that information to any organization or another government agency. You would have to change state law.”
Addressing affordability in Columbus
Columbus is an important city to Raffensperger because the region could be important for the state’s economy, he said.
“Many people don’t realize that my first manufacturing plant in my business (Tendon Systems, based in Suwanee) was actually here on Transport Boulevard in Columbus,” Raffensperger said.
Commercial Metals Company, headquartered in Irving, Texas, bought Tendon Systems in 2023.
Raffensperger said he wants to help create more manufacturing jobs.
“I want things to come back to America,” he said. “I want manufacturing back to America. I want to make sure that our goal will always be to bring it here to Georgia. And we have great manufacturing centers like Columbus.”
Raffensperger wants to put a cap on property taxes statewide.
After high inflation over the past few years, he said, people are saying that they can’t afford their property taxes. This is particularly affecting senior citizens, Raffensperger said.
When property owners’ home values went up 80%, he said, their income did not go up 80%. Capping property taxes would help address affordability in Georgia, Raffensperger said.
“We need to cap property taxes,” he said. “And we need to make sure that we exempt a few things, like public safety and school safety grants. We need to make sure that we’re not pricing our seniors out of their homes.”
