GA Secretary of State answers your early voting questions

We've got some important information coming up right now. So more than one million Georgians have already voted as more of you head to the polls. So we are taking questions right now straight to the top election official here in Georgia. We are so glad to have Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger with us live to answer all of our questions. First of all, Secretary, I know this is a busy, busy time for you. So thank you for being here. My pleasure. Yeah, well, let's jump right in. I was just reading that we've got record-setting early voting numbers. Can you put this in perspective? What kind of numbers are we looking at, and how does this stack up to other elections? Well, right now, we're at 1,199,744. I just checked about two minutes ago, so 1.2 million. And we're about 8% to 10% ahead of where we were four years ago in the last gubernatorial. And we have one less day of early voting because of Columbus Day. So voters are turning out, voters are engaged in the process. Yeah, that's great news. High marks that people trust the system. Yeah, well, I mean, what do you think is driving that early voting number? Why do you think people are getting out early to get this done? Well, they trust the system. We've done three citizenship verifications. We started the first one in 2022, then 2024, then 2026 to verify that there aren't thousands upon thousands or millions upon millions of non-citizens voting. And we found less than 200. And we forward all those names to local DAs and also the DOJs for prosecution. So people know we have a clean list. Then the Department of Audit did an outside audit of our voter list at 99.9% accuracy, higher than the entire country. So people trust at the top of the funnel, the voter list, that it's accurate. And then when you show up to vote, we're keeping those lines short, and it's just a great experience. And then we're gonna have quick results on election day. All that comes together to build huge voter trust. Yeah, you just kinda answered my next question, but I was gonna say, I mean, with so many people voting early, are counties able to keep those lines moving quickly? They have. First day we had a week and a half ago, there was a few places, but they worked through that and opened up additional precincts, and voters are out there. I was in Dawson County yesterday and the parking lot was full and then went up to Hall County and lots of voters coming in there. So you're seeing people engaged in this process all over the entire state, which we really are excited about that. Excited for the voters. Yeah, good news. Well, let's let people know right now. I mean, if we're going to vote early, what do we need to have with us when we come to the polls? What should we be prepared for? Bring a driver's license. That's how ninety nine point nine percent of all people identify themselves. and then you might want to go to my voter page mvp.sos.ga.gov just to make sure you have the right location typically it will be at the county election office and then the larger the counties they'll have regional locations and so that'll be all posted on your county elections website also but mvp to make sure you show up at the right location and there's all the data's right and you have lots of options to vote you can finish up this week plus all next week and then we have election day. Yeah, then election day is coming up. So of course, you mentioned before that people seem to be really trusting the process and trusting the system. But of course, there's always people that have doubts and concerns. What specific safeguards are you pointing to that should make us feel good about voting? We've done citizenship verification of the voter list. We have photo ID for all forms of voting. If you want to vote absentee, Georgia we use primarily driver's license as a means of identifying people, plus signature match. So it's belts and suspenders. We're one of only one state, other state in the country. All right, having a little bit of a freezing issue there. But we do have some questions that you guys sent in that we are going to get answered. So we'll keep on with that. We'll try to get him back again. And if not, we'll at least try to get the answers and get those back on. But good information that we got out there. A lot of people are already early voting and you can continue to early vote. Most people voting with their driver's licenses. But again, go online before you go, make sure you know where you're gonna vote, what you need, all that info. We'll get the links there too. And I think actually we have Mr. Raffensperger back. So let me ask you this quickly too. I mean, is there anything out there that you've heard that's untrue that you wanna clear up? Any misinformation voters might fall prey to that you just wanna set the record straight right now? I think voters need to understand that as it relates to this election, we are going to have quick results on election day so on election night all the early voting that goes on and that's probably over 50 percent all the ballots cast will be reported one hour after the polls close quick results all the absentee ballots that's about five percent quick results that gets reported by 8 p.m and then we'll be there ready just watching what happens on election night before midnight you're going to know the results of all these races some of those may be preliminary numbers just because they're so close for a state rep, state senator. We don't know how that's gonna really, where it's gonna be a really close race. But at the end of the day, we're all- All right, it looks like we have a little bit of a freezing issue there again. But again, some good information coming out there letting people know that there are safeguards in place, they can trust the system. And again, we're getting some really good questions in right now. So I'm just watching off screen to see if I can see some movement again. If we don't, again, we're gonna work to get answers to those questions. Don't worry about it we appreciate you sending them in and of course we'll let you know as soon as we get the answers in too but some good ones coming in right now and we certainly appreciate that but best thing to do go online make sure you get info looks like we've got them back one more time so secretary i do have a quick question coming in right now from our audience if you can hear us and then we report those results and so we're going to have three different audits yeah okay great to know we have a question coming in right now from one of our viewers this is from daphne who says, why after the ID is scanned, they write your name on a pad? What if the individual inadvertently misspells my name? Do you have an answer to that? Well, it's really just to verify. So it's another way like belt and suspenders. So yes, there's an electronic poll pad checking. The state election board decided to put that additional measure in there. And so you'll have another way of just having a paper trail of, you know, handwritten. And so we're finding the election officials are finding it burdensome and they're really being able to work through that. And so at the end of the day, it'll just give you additional confidence. There's some folks that, you know, it's kind of belts and suspenders, and that's what we've done here in Georgia. We're recognized by the Heritage Foundation, which is a hard right organization. We're top three for election integrity. And then also the Bipartisan Policy Center has given us the high marks, number one in the country for election integrity. Because it's free, fair, fast, it's accessible, but it's also secure. We've struck the proper balance. We have another question coming in right now from Shondria, who says, does my ID have to have my address on my license if I just moved? Yes, you have to. Obviously, we can always vote provisionally if there's been some change in that. But your driver's license has the correct address. And they'll ask you that question when you show up. But I know that sometimes people have moved in the last 30 days. And so that's something that is handled at the poll precinct. But it will not affect your ability to vote. Yeah. And then another question, Vera says, I had to re-register to vote. So when will I hear something letting me know that I can now vote? I mean, is there a kind of a time frame or a deadline when you'll let people know that they're good to go? Well, first off, I'd go to mvp.sos.ga.gov. Just Google it. Georgia, my voter page, you know, could take you right there. So that'll show up very quickly. But also still, if that hasn't been, you know, something that's been updated, just go ahead and you can go to the precinct and you can vote and you'll vote what's called provisionally. And then they'll do the back office work to verify that you have actually re-registered and take care of it that way. All right. Excellent. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, I know you are so busy. This is kind of like your Super Bowl season going into Election Day. So thank you for taking the time for us. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. God bless you. Good to see you.