ATLANTA — Update: Incumbent Brad Raffensperger is projected to win reelection, according to NBC News.
Tuesday night, his Democratic challenger, Bee Nguyen conceded.
In a post, she said she called Raffensperger to congratulate him on his reelection. She also showed gratitude for those who supported her in her race for a statewide office.
"The past years haven't been easy in Georgia — I'm grateful to be in (a) race where we can have a phone call & wish each other well," Nguyen said in a statement. "Thank you to the voters in the state of Georgia. You inspire me."
Georgia's Secretary of State is most famously responsible for the state's election administration and verification.
This includes pretty much every level of the election process - registration, implementation of the state voting system, maintaining the state's voter rolls, campaign finance disclosure and ultimately certifying election results. It also oversees licensing, business, and charity creation.
Candidates on the ballot
- Brad Raffensperger (R - Incumbent)
- Bee Nguyen (D)
- Ted Metz (L)
Here's a little more on each candidate:
Brad Raffensperger
Secretary Raffensperger currently serves in the office with his name making national headlines during the 2020 election cycle -- most famously for a phone call in which then President Trump pressed him to find votes that would flip Georgia's election result.
Needless to say, election integrity is a priority for the office and a priority for Raffensperger. A business CEO and licensed engineer, the secretary said his decision to purchase and distribute modern voting machines that could be audited and verified helped secure Georgia's 2020 election - noting they all give the ability to recount votes by hand if necessary (an expansive, longstanding lawsuit against the use of the machines remains ongoing.) This aligns with his campaign belief that elections should be auditable and transparent.
He also believes states - not the federal government - should run elections. Raffensperger also said that third-party individuals, whether volunteers or election workers, should not be allowed to gather and submit completed absentee ballots - emphasizing that voters should be the ones to submit their ballots themselves.
Bee Nguyen
State Rep. Nguyen was the first Asian American Democratic woman elected to the General Assembly and the first Vietnamese American woman to be elected to the Georgia House. She could make history again as the first Asian American to hold statewide office if elected to become Georgia's next Secretary of State.
She currently represents House District 89, Stacey Abrams' previous district. Nguyen gained national attention in a now-viral video fact-checking the Trump campaign's claim that voters cast illegal ballots in the state. Billing herself as a voting rights expert, she said she would use the same fervor to make sure elections are fair and secure.
This includes utilizing text message alert systems to increase voter education and outreach, developing kiosks to securely submit vote-by-mail applications and scan ID software with a focus on areas with a lack of access to broadband, and translating all election materials. She also wants to focus on preventing and mitigating election disinformation, cybersecurity threats and foreign interference.
Ted Metz
The son of a U.S. Air Force pilot, Metz has worked as part of the satellite telecommunications industry, as a scientist, and as an insurance and financial professional. The twists and turns of his career were also rooted in Georgia education as he studied organic chemistry at UGA and risk management and insurance and business administration at Georgia State University.
His platform centers around election integrity, saying casting a ballot should be easy, cheating should be hard but easy to detect and Georgians have a right to honest, transparent and auditable elections. He says this can be accomplished by doing away with electronic voting systems and sticking to paper ballots.
Metz throws his support behind voter ID, absentee signature matching, hand-marked paper ballots, a "strict chain of custody," and penalties. He opposes ballot drop boxes, ballot collection, and private and corporate election funding.
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