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Georgia had quickest election results in U.S.: Raffensperger boasts
Georgia Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger says he's proud of Georgia's role in the 2024 election, between the speed of voting, high voter turnout and quickly tabulated results.
ATLANTA - The day after the election, Georgia's Secretary of State said voting was smooth and steady and the results came in quickly.
"We were reporting results when other states were still out there closing polls or waiting, waiting, waiting," said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Raffensperger says Georgia had one of, if not the, fastest election results in the country. He attributes that to new rules he helped put in place.
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1.2M Georgia votes cast on Election Day
About 1.2 million Georgians cast their ballots on Election Day, in addition to the millions who voted early. As of 9 p.m., about 3 million of those votes had already been counted.
"I made sure the general assembly put into law all those early votes, turned out to be close to 70% and 5% absentee, were all uploaded by 8 p.m.," said Raffensperger.
There have also been changes that helped speed up voting for the record-breaking number of Georgians who cast their ballots.
"I led all the initiatives we had through the general assembly to make sure lines were shorter than one hour. Then, we added in the electronic poll pass which had them check-in at 49 seconds," said Raffensperger.
It wasn't all smooth sailing. Just a few hours after the polls opened, reports of bomb threats at precincts across metro Atlanta started coming in.
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Bomb threats at metro Atlanta polling places
The FBI is investigating a series of bomb threats targeting polling places across Georgia and other battleground states.
"When it happened earlier, people weren't really sure," said Raffensperger.
Law enforcement responded, and some locations were evacuated.
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By the end of the night, about 60 threats had been made. The FBI became involved and determined the threats were not credible.
"The FBI confirmed it is Russian-based. By that point, everyone knew they were fake and it was just someone trying to create mischief," said Raffensperger.
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Election Night Live: Russia 'picked on the wrong Georgia'
A total of 12 Georgia voting precincts received bomb threats and election officials say they believe some of them came from Russia. Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger said Russia "picked on the wrong Georgia. They need to pick on the other one in the Black Sea, because we're not going to be intimidated. The nearly 5.2 million Georgians who voted in the 2024 election set a new record.
Despite the threats, voting continued, ballots were counted, and Raffensperger said within just three hours after the polls closed, he knew which presidential candidate would win Georgia.
"By 10 p.m., I knew the race was over and that President Trump was going to be the victor," said Raffensperger.