Ga. elections chief makes visit to Glascock County

GIBSON, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger went to Glascock County to check on the county’s voting equipment on Thursday.

He stopped by the Glascock County Board of Elections Office to conduct health checks of voting equipment, mainly in preparation for the 2024 elections.

As secretary of state, Raffensperger oversees the state’s elections.

His team checked the hardware and software to ensure it remained intact since initially deployed. Sample ballots are put into machines with results that Raffensberger and his team know beforehand to make sure the machine’s count is accurate.

“It’s really about confidence,” said Raffensberger. “We know that machines are secure the processes that are in place for security, but what we want you to understand is that my highest priority is the security of your ballot. We want you to know that it’s going to be recorded accurately. And so it’s really about as we elevate confidence.”

It’s part of Raffensperger’s 2024 plan for election security.

“We’re going to do by going through this test that we can show you we got the same result. Nothing’s been changed and altered over the period of time that they’ve been here. And we also look at the security of the building and things like that,” he said.

The test checks the machines and ensures they’re working properly and are secure from being hacked.

Glascock County was the 80th county his team has tested.

His team says there were no major issues, only minor ones like screens being cracked or issues with the paper ballot receiver.

“We also understand how polarized we are in America right now and also Georgia. It’s really a nationwide phenomenon,” he said. “We understand that at the end of the race, that half the people will be happy, and the other half won’t be. We want 100% confidence that their vote was actually recorded.”

He hopes to have the entire state done by the end of the year as the presidential primaries start in Georgia on March 12.

Copyright 2023 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.