Some of Georgia’s voting regulations needed changes, but to really add credibility to the state’s election system, Republicans must come forward and admit that former President Donald Trump lost “fairly” to President Joe Biden, Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan said Monday.
“We’ve got folks on the far right that are trying to claim this as some sort of calculated response to the great hoax that played out for ten weeks, and you’ve got folks on the left claiming this is some great overreach of suppression,” Duncan, a Republican, said on CNN’s “New Day.” “There’s things I like, things I don’t like.”
One of the things Duncan said he doesn’t like is the new law’s “reach” into the power that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has that removes him as chair of the state Elections Board.
“The only thing he did wrong is he was the scapegoat of President Trump,” said Duncan.
He added that he doesn’t think “it was the best move forward” to pass the strict election laws, and that the elements banning people from giving food and water to voters standing in line are “complicated.”
“It’s definitely harder to understand than just what you see on the surface,” said Duncan. “I think as Republicans, we have a hard time getting credibility because of the way the 10 weeks (after the November election) played out.”
But still, he said, there were some things in the state’s election law that needed to be modernized, including voter ID laws.
“Now we have an opportunity to handwrite your driver’s license number and if you don’t have a driver’s license, the four digits of your birth year and the last four digits of your Social Security,” said Duncan. “There was a need to start processing absentee ballots well before the close of the polls so we don’t have to wait three or four days. There are things both sides really agreed on that we needed to happen.”
He also pointed out that the initial law was much more strict, but a watered-down version was passed that will still be repudiated by both sides.
“But look, I’m ready to move past this election cycle,” said Duncan. “I’m ready to put my head down in Georgia and do what Georgia wants us to do, that’s to navigate through a pandemic, keep our economy strong, get our kids back to education. These are issues we need a real solution for.”
He also commented on the arrest of Democrat State Rep. Park Cannon, who was charged after protesting outside Gov. Brian Kemp’s office while the bill was being signed.
“I’ve only seen social media videos that have been posted of the incident, and I’ve not read the police report,” said Duncan, “But it looks as though the Georgia state troopers followed protocol. Certainly I don’t like to see that conflict in the Capitol, but I think whether it’s me or you or her, the same result would have happened. They gave her warnings and had to do what they had to do.”
He added that his hope is that state officials get back to work.
“The interesting thing at the state level, not only in Georgia but in other states, we get along in a bipartisan format more than Washington, D.C., does,” he said. ” I want to get back to that. These are the real issues that I think an overwhelming majority of Americans want us to tackle, and I’m anxious to get through this and get back to work.”
Source: Newmax
