The following is a transcript of an interview with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on October 20, 2024.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We now turn to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Welcome back to Face The Nation.

GEORGIAN FOREIGN MINISTER BRAD RAFFENSPERGER: Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You just heard the Georgia senator’s comment that high voter turnout is not evidence that there is a lack of voter suppression in your state. He pointed to the state election board’s failed attempt to change election rules as some kind of proof of intent. How do you react to that? And how do you increase trust in your state’s system?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, it’s actually very sad to hear what he said, but he was chosen by Stacey Abrams when he was running a few years ago, and she’s actually the founder of the voter denial movement. She lost in 2018 by 55,000 votes, and then when we passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021, she said it was Jim Crow 2.0. But what you’ve seen in the 2022 election and this election is record turnout. We now have photo ID for all forms of voting. People were concerned about signature matching. We were actually sued by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party because they questioned the validity of the signature match. So we added that, you know, we added a photo idea above the signature match so people know that we’ve identified who these voters are. And if you look at voter turnout, we’re pushing close to 1.4 million who have already voted early or whose mail-in ballots we’ve accepted. We’re probably going to see record turnout, early voting, probably 65, maybe 70% of all Georgians will vote that way, but they have the freedom to choose how they vote. Regarding the rules of the state election board. I never supported any of the ones I was very vocal about on day one and they were declared unconstitutional. They were closed. But both Republican counties, two Republican-controlled boards and two election boards actually joined these lawsuits and fought against these state election boards. So it’s actually very easy to tune. We have photo ID, we verify citizenship and we have record participation.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, there are doubts on the Republican side as well. As you know, your party is not a monolith, and Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claims there is fraud afoot in Whitfield County. She said Dominion voting machines switched votes. The county executive said there was only one instance in which a printed ballot did not reflect a voter’s voting decision. And then one of your colleagues said it was just human user error. As the state’s top election official, have you seen any evidence of fraud?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: No. And what happened with Whitfield County was that the lady thought she had made a certain choice, you know, and then when she printed out the ballot, she noticed that, she saw that, and then she put it on it brought to our attention and it was corrected. And then it got blown out of proportion by people who like to use Twitter and other forms of social media. But we will respond quickly to things like this in 2024 because the facts don’t support it. The equipment works. We have carried out all sorts of audits since the last election and before this election.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, it wasn’t just a few people. That’s what this district’s elected representative, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, said. But I want to ask you something else because I think it’s important to let people at home know what’s happening with this election. As far as I know, almost all votes cast in this upcoming election will be recorded on paper. Last night-

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: -Absolutely 100%. It is actually a security paper with the state seal on it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, that’s an important point because yesterday President Trump said something that suggests there may be something nefarious here because it can take some time to tally the votes. Listen to me.

(FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SOT)

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They spend all this money on machines and then they announce that we’ll expect the results about seven days after the election. If you had paper ballots, you will receive them at 10 a.m. France put pen to paper because what we were doing wasn’t working.

(END SOT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: He points to the lack of paper ballots as a problem here. Does it describe exactly what is happening and how long will it take to tally the votes?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: In Georgia, 100% of all votes cast are cast on a paper ballot. But nationally, it will actually be the case that over 96 to 97% of all ballots in America will be cast by paper ballot. But we also introduced the law this year with SB 189 that all early voting and all early accepted ballots must report their results by 8 p.m. That’s 70, perhaps even 75% of all votes cast, which will be announced no later than 8 p.m. on election night.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Won’t it take seven days to tally the votes, as he said?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: Absolutely not. What we will be waiting for are the foreign ballots, which will arrive by Friday at the latest, and then those will be the final numbers. And we’ll see if that makes the difference in the total number of votes. I understand that we are very competitive, and that is why we have done everything we can from day one to ensure that we deliver fast, accurate and secure elections for all of my constituents here in Georgia.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re a Republican, you’ve said in the past. You supported Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. You are on record rejecting his attempts to overturn the election results in your state after the 2020 election this year. If the other party’s presidential candidate wins, will you force a certification of the election for that winner?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: I will make sure whoever wins this race is certified. I will abide by the law and the constitution. I will do my job, and that’s what the people of Georgia elected me to do. I represent the voters of Georgia.

MARGARET BRENNAN: At a rally in August, Donald Trump publicly praised the state election officials we talked about earlier, three of them who were his supporters present at the rally. He called them pit bulls fighting for transparency and victory. And he said this:

(FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SOT)

FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Your Governor Kemp and Raffensperger are doing everything they can to make it difficult for the Republicans to win in 2024. This – what are they doing? I don’t know. You have something in mind.

(END SOT)

MARGARET BRENNAN: He’s talking about you. This sounds like an attempt to influence election officials. Does that cross a line?

SEC. RAFFENSPERGER: Well, it doesn’t affect me because everything we’ve done since House Bill 316 in 2019, SB, 202 and 2021, and SB, 189, is everything we’ve done to support concerned voters. We’re increasing security, but we’re also making sure that the lines that Senator Warnock just mentioned have to be less than an hour on Election Day, and we’re tracking that. And the average wait time in 2022 was actually three minutes, sometimes even at two minutes. And even during this early voting period, there were consistent lines at voting centers, but the lines lasted less than an hour. But even with electronic voting documents, you can be checked in in less than two minutes. I checked in with my wife last week. We were checked in in less than 47 seconds. I timed it. Pretty amazing.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Raffensperger will be closely monitoring your embattled state. Good luck. We’ll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.