Georgia secretary of state reaffirms no widespread voter fraud, suggests changes to absentee voting

ATLANTA - A Georgia House Governmental Affairs committee met on Wednesday and heard from the Secretary of State's Office about the November election.

The Secretary of State's Office suggested changes they said will improve voter confidence. Secretary Brad Raffensperger reaffirmed on Wednesday their office has not found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Still, Raffensperger would like to make changes to absentee voting.

"What we want to set up for an election system is one that everyone has confidence in," said Ryan Germany, General Counsel for the Secretary of State's Office.

The Secretary of State's office took questions from Georgia lawmakers on Wednesday for more than three hours.

"The vast majority of claims are simply unfounded," said Raffensperger.

Raffensperger also suggested putting an end to no excuse absentee voting in the state and requiring a photo I.D. to request that absentee ballot.

"This cycle has shown we need to move to an excuse-based system for absentee voting. The no excuse system makes no sense when we have three weeks of in-person, early voting available," said Raffensperger.

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The suggestion was met by criticism, mostly from Democrats.

"I think a lot of the reasons we're having these committee meeting is their preferred candidate was not selected," said Rep. Renitta Shannon.

"If there is no evidence as it pertains to fraud, why would the Secretary of State try to eliminate the no excuse absentee ballot voting," questioned Rep. Bee Nguyen.

Raffensperger's office also debunked claims made by President Trump's campaign. Lawyers for Trump claimed there were thousands of illegal votes from people underage or unregistered. The Secretary of State said they found no cases of underage or unregistered voters.

"Our initial investigation is nowhere close to what the Trump campaign is saying, and it's going to be nowhere close to anything that would put the results in questions," said Germany.

The Secretary of State would also like more authority when it comes to county election offices. Raffensperger would like the ability to be able to fire election officials that consistently have issues with elections.

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