More than 175 people heard Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger discuss accomplishments made regarding elections, licensing, and business growth in Georgia.
Raffensperger was the guest speaker at the Greater Chamber Perimeter’s Signature Luncheon, held with the Brookhaven Chamber of Commerce at Sandy Springs Studio Theatre on April 23.
Raffensperger said when he first ran for Georgia Secretary of State, he campaigned on the pledge to make sure only American citizens vote in elections. The installation of Georgia’s Real ID helps ensure that it can happen. The voter ID requirement withstood U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny, he said.
The new election system was set up on time and under budget at approximately $110 million, well under the $150 million limit.
Raffensperger said in a visit to the Perimeter Chamber in Dunwoody in June 2023 that the 2024 election was likely to see the same accusations of voter fraud made four years earlier. He said his office’s job was to make sure the election was honest and fair. In this latest visit to the Perimeter, he said time has proven that Georgia has secure elections.
State law now requires that precinct voting wait times must be less than one hour long. Raffensperger’s office examined Georgia’s 2,400 voting precincts and assessed which had problems and which were meeting expectations. Counties used the assessment to improve and realign precincts.
In addition, Georgians no longer have to wait overnight to learn unofficial election totals, he said.
“What we put into state law with SB 189 a year ago in the 2023 General Assembly,” Raffensperger said, “was that all the early voting that you have – and that’s 75 percent of all Georgians are voting early now and the five to seven percent that vote absentee – all of that had to be reported one hour after the election closed.”
After the 2020 presidential election, the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill that reduced the Georgia secretary of state’s powers. The General Assembly’s legislation gave it the ability to appoint the majority of the State Election Board by removing the secretary of state as the chair.
Raffensperger said he didn’t believe this was a wise decision. The State Election Board also gained the ability to fire election directors of counties, but the person doing the firing is an appointed chairman not beholden to the voters, Raffensperger said.
The legislation also gave the State Election Board the power to oversee county election boards. with performance reviews over local elections management made by the state voting board, county commission, or a local legislative delegation. Those reviews could result in the state board appointing a replacement to temporarily run local elections.
Until a bill was passed during the recent legislative session, the governor appointed election board members, but they could not be removed if they failed to do their job. With the new legislation, the governor will have that power.
Raffensperger said he wants to make sure that Georgia remains a pro-business state as well as a great place to raise a family.
“Why is that so important to you? Because I believe that the free-market system is the gateway for higher economic outcomes for everyone,” Raffensperger said.
In 2018 as a state legislator, Raffensperger introduced a bill that allows a corporation to renew for up to three years. He admitted that it wasn’t his idea, but that it came from a business owner.
With almost 1.5 million corporations registered with the state, new software is needed because the system slows down in February when so many businesses are renewing their licenses, Raffensperger said.
A new bill passed that will go into effect in July, enabling Raffensperger’s office to administratively issue licenses. This licensing reform should help, because with 140 different licenses under 40 different boards, delays can happen if the boards don’t meet often enough.
“Our largest group of license holders are nurses – 500,000 nurses out of the million that we oversee. We think we have an obligation of duty to reduce those barriers,” Raffensperger said.
Asked for his thoughts on the Trump administration’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and its potential effect on his office, Raffensperger said he has already right-sized his office with less than 30 people in his elections office. “North Carolina has 72, so we’ve already right-sized our office, and we’ve been doing that since day one.”
Thousands of federal workers have been fired in the first month of Trump’s administration. New and career workers were removed as agency leaders were told to plan for large-scale reductions in force and freezes of trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.
Nearly 1,300 probationary workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have reported being forced out of their jobs.
Emory planned to freeze all raises and limit spending because of concerns about federal research funding cuts., Rough Draft Atlanta reported. The Atlanta university received more than $488 million in research funding from the National Institutes of Health in 2024, and is by far the largest research recipient in Georgia. Emory reported that cutting the amount NIH gives to universities for research funds would cost the university an estimated $140 million annually.
Raffensperger said Georgia needs to help leverage the entrepreneurial value of the people laid off from agencies like the CDC and Emory University. He said the CDC and Emory have a bigger concentration of medical doctors and Ph.Ds. than anywhere else in the world. If those medical professionals are suddenly without work, it could be a great opportunity for Georgia.
“How do we leverage that for some entrepreneurial venture that they can build a business here in Georgia?” Raffensperger asked.
Responding to questions from the audience, Raffensperger said re-industrialization is a nagging problem for the state. He said the state can participate in efforts like the University of Georgia’s work using robotics to improve the agricultural process.
Georgia businesses are also still trying to figure out the impacts of tariffs, Raffensperger said. He said he’s seen economic distruption before, having gotten through the recession from 2008 to 2012, and from supply chain delays caused by the pandemic.
Raffensperger assessed the Trump administration’s early days in office by recognizing that illegal immegration at the Mexico-United States border had been reduced greatly, something he said the majority of the country wanted.
“We have a process, a lawful process, but we need to make sure that we’re vetting people that come into this country,” Raffensperger said.
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