Raffensperger, who stood up to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results, was invited to deliver a speech on ‘election subversion.’
Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight asked the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine to disinvite Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger from an event on “Election Subversion” at the university on Friday.
Raffensperger, a Republican, became a national figure in the wake of the 2020 presidential election for resisting President Donald Trump’s requests to help overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. When he refused, he became the subject of criticism from Trump and other elected officials such as senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue — both of whom called on him to resign before losing their reelection bids in run-offs. Many of Trump’s supporters in the state also turned on Raffensperger.
At the time, Raffensperger characterized Trump’s claims of massive voter fraud as “just plain wrong.”
Nevertheless, Fair Fight, which Abrams founded to push back against election integrity measures after her failed 2018 Georgia gubernatorial run, sent a letter to the university charging Raffensperger with having “backed many of the provisions of Senate Bill 202, the anti-voter legislation in Georgia that pushed election subversion.” The letter was signed by a group of Democratic state senators.
S.B. 202 instituted a number of election integrity measures alongside provisions to make the ballot box more accessible, such as an extension of early voting and the permanent establishment of the use of absentee drop boxes in the state.
The letter also argues that “Brad Raffensperger’s actions in support of election subversion represent a ‘danger to democracy’.”
Fair Fight’s prescription?
“His invitation should be rescinded.”
Raffensperger was not disinvited; he delivered his speech at the event on Friday, which was meant to bring together “leading election officials, scholars of democracy, lawyers, political strategists and legal scholars to consider both problems and solutions to the risk of election subversion,” a subject the embattled secretary of state is well-suited to speak to given recent events. Even considering the significant political disagreements between himself and Abrams, he could hardly believe the effort to cancel him.
“There should be no controversy, UC Irvine asked me to give a speech about defending democracy, and I think I’ve shown that I’ll defend democracy. I’ll stand in the gap and make sure we have honest and fair election,” he told National Review.
“We’ve been fighting back on twin fronts,” said Raffensperger, “one is Stacey Abrams’ voter suppression narrative, which is not supported by the facts and then Donald Trump’s voter fraud narrative, which is not based on facts either.”
For his efforts, Raffensperger asserts that he’s made serious sacrifices.
“My wife received sexualized threats, my family members had their homes broken into, and members of far-right militias parked outside my door,” he recounted.
In the meantime, Abrams has, according to Raffensperger, opposed common sense election integrity measures, and is now trying to deny him his free speech rights.
“That’s not the American tradition,” he said, “obviously she’s scared of an honest and fair discussion.”