Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won wide praise last fall for firmly rejecting then-President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. But now that those claims have spawned an effort to tighten voting laws — one that could affect their political fortunes — the two Republicans are taking a softer approach.
Both men say they support Georgia Republicans’ efforts to enact an ID requirement for absentee voting that would do away with the state’s signature matching system, which Trump heavily attacked…
Kemp, Raffensperger and their aides are working quietly with Republican legislators to craft changes to absentee and early voting they believe can strike a balance. That may mean jettisoning or at least relaxing some of the proposals circulating in the Republican-run General Assembly, which include scrapping an automatic voter registration law and banning early voting on Sundays, a move that appeared aimed at ending “souls to the polls” voter drives run by Black churches.
But the Republican leaders have been cautious about publicly opposing any individual measure. “I think it should be easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Kemp said Wednesday, recycling a go-to line from his days as secretary of state.
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