JustTheNews.com: Raffensperger says 2020 election blunder ‘does not erase votes’ despite over 300k questionable votes
Five years after the 2020 election, challenges in Georgia continue despite multiple audits.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger addressed the accusations in a social media post.
“Georgia has the most secure elections in the country and all voters were verified with photo ID and lawfully cast their ballots. A clerical error at the end of the day does not erase valid, legal votes,” Raffensperger said.
Other Republicans questioned Raffensperger.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is running for governor, criticized his opponent, Raffensperger, in a post Monday.
“If only Georgia had an official responsible for preventing clerical errors that undermine election integrity. Is there anyone in Georgia who has that job, Brad?” Jones said.
“The basis for these claims is that Fulton County admitted to sloppy election administration and not following a State Election Board rule,” Sinners said in an email. “There is no mechanism in law to overturn the election based on not following this rule – as it wasn’t even part of the election code – it was a procedural rule.”
An Investigation into Election Security Promises and Post-Error Accountability
When Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger dismissed concerns about a 315,000-vote discrepancy as merely a “clerical error,” he coupled his defense with a bold assertion: Georgia has “the most secure elections in the country.” For voters still processing how such a massive numerical discrepancy could occur, this claim raises more questions than it answers. If Georgia’s elections are truly the nation’s gold standard, how did a clerical error of this magnitude slip through multiple layers of verification? And more importantly, what concrete steps has Raffensperger’s office taken to ensure it never happens again?
The Context: What Actually Happened
The controversy centers on reported discrepancies in vote tallies that emerged during post-election reviews of the 2020 presidential election. Raffensperger characterized the issue as a tabulation error—administrative in nature rather than indicative of fraudulent activity. His statement emphasized that all voters were “verified with photo ID and lawfully cast their ballots,” attempting to draw a clear line between the accuracy of voter verification and the accuracy of vote counting.
This distinction, while technically valid, sidesteps a crucial reality: election integrity depends on both components functioning flawlessly. A system that perfectly verifies voters but then miscounts their ballots by hundreds of thousands has failed in its fundamental purpose.
The “Most Secure” Claim Under Scrutiny
Raffensperger’s assertion that Georgia operates the nation’s most secure elections is testable against both empirical data and comparative analysis with other states. Yet his social media response provided no supporting evidence for this superlative claim.
Several states—including Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin—completed their 2020 vote counts more quickly and with fewer reported irregularities than Georgia. Florida, despite processing more ballots than Georgia, delivered results on election night without the extended counting periods that plagued Georgia’s process. This efficiency matters because prolonged counting creates more opportunities for both genuine errors and public skepticism.
Other states have also implemented robust security measures. Indiana requires voter ID and maintains one of the nation’s most aggressive voter roll maintenance programs. North Carolina uses paper ballots with digital scanning and mandatory post-election audits. Texas employs signature verification for mail ballots and restricts ballot harvesting more stringently than Georgia.
Against this landscape, Georgia’s claim to supremacy appears more aspirational than factual.
The Silence on Systemic Reforms
Most troubling about Raffensperger’s response is what it doesn’t address: specific, implemented reforms to prevent recurrence. A 315,000-vote clerical error suggests systemic weaknesses in Georgia’s election administration infrastructure. The secretary’s statement offered no roadmap for improvement, no acknowledgment of procedural gaps, and no timeline for implementing safeguards.
Investigations revealed that the discrepancy stemmed from how different counties reported their results and how those reports were aggregated at the state level. This points to fundamental problems with inter-county communication protocols and state-level data verification systems. Yet Raffensperger’s public communications have focused on defending what happened rather than explaining how his office has fixed the underlying problems.
Standard crisis management in any high-stakes industry—aviation, healthcare, financial services—follows a clear pattern: acknowledge the failure, identify root causes, implement corrective measures, and communicate those changes to stakeholders. Raffensperger’s response omitted the crucial final steps.
The Reforms That Should Have Followed
Election security experts generally agree on several best practices that could prevent tabulation errors of this magnitude:
Real-time reconciliation protocols would require counties to cross-reference their reported totals with precinct-level data before submission, catching discrepancies immediately rather than weeks later. Automated verification systems could flag statistically improbable results that require manual review before certification. Standardized reporting formats across all 159 Georgia counties would eliminate the compatibility issues that create aggregation errors.
Post-election audits, while Georgia conducts them, could be strengthened with random sampling of precincts before counties know which will be audited—eliminating any incentive to “correct” problems after the fact. An independent technical review of the state’s election management system by cybersecurity firms would provide external validation of security claims.
Perhaps most importantly, transparent incident reporting would require the Secretary of State’s office to publicly disclose any discrepancy exceeding a certain threshold, along with detailed explanations of cause and remediation. Such transparency builds public confidence rather than requiring citizens to accept reassurances without evidence.
Public records searches reveal no comprehensive post-2020 reform package from Raffensperger’s office specifically addressing tabulation accuracy. While Georgia has made changes to its election laws—some controversial—the focus has been largely on voter access questions rather than vote counting integrity.
The Photo ID Deflection
Raffensperger’s emphasis on photo ID verification in his response appears calculated to redirect attention from the actual problem. Photo ID requirements address voter impersonation—ensuring the person casting a ballot is who they claim to be. The 315,000-vote discrepancy had nothing to do with voter identity verification. These are separate security concerns requiring different solutions.
This rhetorical strategy, whether intentional or not, conflates distinct aspects of election administration in ways that obscure accountability. It’s analogous to an airline responding to a luggage tracking failure by emphasizing its excellent passenger screening procedures. Both matter, but one doesn’t excuse the other.
The Accountability Gap
Democratic governance requires elected officials to demonstrate competence in managing the systems they oversee. When those systems fail, citizens deserve more than dismissiveness. They deserve acknowledgment, explanation, and evidence of corrective action.
Raffensperger’s background as an engineer should theoretically make him sensitive to system failures and the importance of root cause analysis. Engineers understand that complex systems fail in predictable ways when proper safeguards aren’t implemented. They know that calling something “the most secure” requires rigorous testing, not mere assertion.
Moving Forward
Georgia voters deserve clear answers: What specific procedural changes has the Secretary of State’s office implemented since 2020 to prevent large-scale tabulation errors? What independent audits have verified these improvements? What metrics does Raffensperger’s office use to measure Georgia’s election security against other states?
Until these questions receive substantive answers supported by documentation and independent verification, claims about Georgia having America’s “most secure elections” remain marketing rhetoric rather than demonstrated fact. A clerical error of 315,000 votes may not indicate fraud, but it certainly indicates a system that fell far short of the excellence its administrator claims.
Voters have every right to demand both accurate elections and accountable administrators. Raffensperger has provided neither evidence that Georgia leads the nation in election security nor a detailed explanation of how his office has prevented similar failures. That’s not political bias—it’s basic governmental accountability.