Raffensberger speaks to WALB on election crime sentences ahead of meeting with prosecutors over 2020 election

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - Ahead of speaking to federal prosecutors about the 2020 presidential election, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger spoke to WALB’s Jim Wallace about stiffer election crime sentences.

You are calling for tougher penalties on voting machine tampering. What’s this all about?

“Well, the federal government has declared elections, election, infrastructure critical,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “And so it already recognizes the importance of making sure that bad actors don’t mess with their election equipment. So, I believe that Georgia law needs to be very specific, and we need to have specific felonies that need to be severe felonies with specific jail time. 10 years when people try to hack you to a system, try to gain access unauthorized access to election equipment.”

Do you think this is needed before the next election? Are you concerned?

“Well, I think what we’ve seen from 2018, 2020, I think there’s always going to be people out there that cannot accept the results of the election,” Raffensperger said. “Then there’s people that are bad actors, and we saw that post-2020 in Coffee County (Georgia). And so I think there need to be significant- have at least to make sure it provides sufficient deterrence to anyone that does do this, and if they do do this, then they’ll pay the consequences: 10 years in prison.”

Election integrity is going to be big in the 2024 elections. I think everybody’s going to be talking about it and this, I guess, is something preemptive that’s needed.

“Absolutely,” Raffensperger said. “That’s why I’ve called the General Assembly to introduce some passed, you know, legislation to get this on place before the November 2020 to 2024 race.”

Could you see any lawmakers that would oppose this kind of law?

“Well, when you go work through the General Assembly, we’ll see what that is,” Raffensperger said. “But I think that obviously, I think people will recognize the importance of this and the significance and why it is needed.”

You talked about Coffee County. Where does that case stand now?

“That’s ongoing investigation and that’s something that the State Election Board is, you know, currently working,” Raffensperger said.

All right, so 10 years in prison minimum that hopefully will make people think about keeping our elections fair. So what else is going on as you prepare for 2024, the voting machines in Georgia is still the talk, even years later.”

“We’re really looking at just streamlining and accelerating the process that we can,” Raffensperger said. “Move voters through make. We keep those lines short. So that’ll be one of the things. And then also, making sure that we have robust security. Checks you know on the back end. With logic and accuracy, accuracy testing. Verifying the machines but then also increasing the penalties. For any bad actors. We think it’s also a critically important thing.”

I guess work on elections, election season never ends.

Copyright 2023 WALB. All rights reserved.