Opposing View: Georgians support securing elections

Imagine if the November elections were as flawed as former President Donald Trump and his allies alleged.

On Day One, we made election security our top priority to prevent just that. As secretary of state, I led the charge to update our outdated voting system with a printed paper ballot for the first time in two decades, introduced photo ID for absentee ballot requests and banned ballot harvesting. From the beginning, I knew that these steps were crucial to shoring up confidence in the state’s voting system. As a result, we were able to confidently rebut every election conspiracy theory. We delivered an authoritative vote tally thanks to the printed paper ballots and the state’s first ever full hand recount.

Georgia could easily disprove outlandish claims that votes had been switched by the Dominion machines or that ballots had been scanned multiple times because we have the receipts, literally and metaphorically.

This paid dividends as Georgia voter confidence has remained high despite the relentless attacks against the integrity of the system. A survey of Georgia voters by the Center for Election Innovation and Research found that even after the November election disinformation onslaught, 83% of Georgians were confident their votes would be counted accurately; 71% of Georgia Republicans felt the same way.

While strong, those January numbers represent a drop from the sentiment before the election. At the time, 91% of Georgia voters were confident in the vote, an 8 percentage point decrease through January. Republicans saw a 22- point decrease from the 93% who felt confident in October. More work needs to be done. Securing elections has overwhelming support in Georgia. Georgians support additional safeguards 55%- 41%, and 74% of Georgia voters support adding photo ID for absentee ballots, not to mention 56% of Democrats and 63% of Black voters.

Though rare, there is illegal voting in every election. Absentee ballot voting is done out of sight of elections officials and is the most vulnerable link in the chain. Adding photo ID is necessary to shore up confidence in the absentee ballot process. One illegal vote is too many. We have not stopped and will not stop working to secure the vote in Georgia. The voters want it, and the integrity of our election system demands it.