Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has voiced his objections to the ongoing efforts aimed at preventing former President Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 ballot, despite efforts to push this initiative across multiple states.
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“Mr. Trump might win the nomination and general election. Or he could lose. The outcomes should be determined by the people who show up to make their preference known in primaries (including Georgia’s on March 12) and the general election on Nov. 5,” Raffensperger said in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal.
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“A process that denies voters their chance to be the deciding factor in the nomination and election process would erode the belief in our uniquely American representative democracy,” he asserted.
Certain legal scholars and critics of the former president reference the 14th Amendment, which, they argue, prohibits individuals who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and later “engaged in insurrection” against the United States or “given aid or comfort” to its adversaries, from holding office again. They contend that Trump’s endeavors to challenge the 2020 election results render him ineligible under these stipulations.
Free Speech For People, a legal advocacy entity, dispatched letters to senior election officials in nine states, including New Hampshire, last month, urging them to exclude Trump from the ballot. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, another legal advocacy group representing six Republicans and unaffiliated voters, initiated a lawsuit recently, aiming to prevent Trump’s inclusion on Colorado’s ballot.
Trump labeled these disqualification attempts as a “trick” and dismissed their legal validity.
Raffensperger, however, countered these arguments, stating that leveraging the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from the ballot represents the “newest way of attempting to short-circuit the ballot box.”
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“Since 2018, Georgia has seen losing candidates and their lawyers try to sue their way to victory. It doesn’t work,” Raffensperger declared. “Stacey Abrams’s claims of election mismanagement following the 2018 election were rejected in court, as were Mr. Trump’s after the 2020 election.”
He further emphasized that the 2024 election “won’t be decided by prosecutors” and dismissed the notion that the vice president, “whose role is simply to oversee a joint session of Congress in which each state’s electors are counted,” could influence the outcome. This was a clear reference to Trump’s allegations that former Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 win.
“The American people will make their own decisions,” Raffensperger proclaimed. “Country music singer Luke Bryan, a fellow Georgian, said it best: ‘Most people are good.’ Most of the time they will get it right. Trust the voters.”
Despite his consistent disagreements with the former president, especially regarding Trump’s claims of the 2020 election being compromised by voter fraud, Raffensperger announced in mid-August that Georgia would be updating its voter lists. He also released a statement emphasizing his office’s dedication to ensuring election security in 2024.
“Exercises like these ensure that Georgia’s elections are prepared for any possible threat,” Raffensperger remarked regarding the office’s security measures. “Preparation is key, and we’re ready.”
