On his Saturday show on MSNBC, Ali Velshi was utterly confused by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's claim that Stacey Abrams' stolen election conspiracy theories were no different than Donald Trump's. After all, voter suppression, unlike fraud, was a legitimate concern.
Raffensperger was on to promote his new book and after talking about Trump and 2020, Velshi wondered why he wasn't a big fan of Abrams. Velshi thought the two should be on the same team:
In this current struggle, the struggle about the integrity for elections. The struggle for democracy. The struggle in which everyone who’s constitutionally entitled to vote should vote in a way that is unimpeded. Strikes me that you and Stacey Abrams are on the same side of that. In this fight are you not more closely aligned with her than you are, for instance, for a lot, than a lot of the Republicans who are not supporting you right now, including the ex-president’s clown car?
Raffensperger completely rejected Velshi's spin. "No, not in the least. If really you look at what Stacey Abrams did, she lost the state of Georgia in 2018 by 55,000 votes. She questioned the legitimacy of our elections," he recalled. "She actually then set the table, along with other leaders, national Democrat leaders that supported Stacey Abrams in her big lie and set the table for President Trump then just to ramp it up and take it to the next level."
After Raffensperger urged both parties to fight hard to win elections, but lose with honor, an incredulous Velshi asked: "You cannot possibly be drawing a parallel between Stacey Abrams saying there were voters suppressed and Donald Trump saying that you need to find votes that weren’t cast in his favor. Those can’t be, you can’t, those can’t be equivalencies to you."
Raffensperger again had to provide Velshi with some basic facts, "but there was no voter suppression. In her race, we had 4 million people show up for the governor's race. That’s nearly a million more than ever showed up before. We had record numbers of people that are registered, record turnout, there was no voter suppression. So, it was all made up."
Velshi tripled down, claiming, "there is a distinction between lying about voter fraud and discussing whether states like Georgia, states like Texas and others do make it difficult for people who have a constitutional right to vote, right?"
Again, Raffensperger had to correct the record and by citing early voting and absentee voting showed just how easy it is in Georgia to vote. Not that Velshi cared about facts. "You do not think you can do things in Georgia to improve the access for people to vote? That you can make it a better voting system," Velshi pressed
Forced to repeat himself, Raffensperger replied "We already have," to which the never satisfied Velshi interrupted "But can you do more?"
Raffensperger concluded the segment by promoting changes Georgia has made, such as eliminating subjective signature verification with objective driver's license numbers and shorter Election Day lines.
This segment was sponsored by Chase
Here is a transcript for the November 6 show:
MSNBC's Velshi
November 6, 2021
8:09 AM ETALI VELSHI: You’ve taken aim at Stacey Abrams recently and I almost wonder about that because I know you’re different political parties, but in this current struggle, the struggle about the integrity for elections. The struggle for democracy. The struggle in which everyone who’s constitutionally entitled to vote should vote in a way that is unimpeded. Strikes me that you and Stacey Abrams are on the same side of that. In this fight are you not more closely aligned with her than you are, for instance, for a lot, than a lot of the Republicans who are not supporting you right now, including the ex-president’s clown car?
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER: No, not in the least. If really you look at what Stacey Abrams did, she lost the state of Georgia in 2018 by 55,000 votes. She questioned the legitimacy of our elections. She actually then set the table, along with other leaders, national Democrat leaders that supported Stacey Abrams in her big lie and set the table for President Trump then just to ramp it up and take it to the next level.
Voter suppression and voter fraud. They’re both sides of the coin, different sides, but stolen election claims undermine people’s confidence in the elections. So, both parties are, really, something they need to look internally at what they have done on the left and right and say we are not going to do that anymore. We’re going, we’re going to really fight hard to win the elections, but when we lose, we’re going to lose honorably.
VELSHI: Yeah, I totally agree with that, I agree with that last conclusion, but you cannot possibly be drawing a parallel between Stacey Abrams saying there were voters suppressed and Donald Trump saying that you need find votes that weren’t cast in his favor. Those can’t be, you can’t, those can’t be equivalencies to you.
RAFFENSPERGER: She undermined, but there was no voter suppression. In her race, we had 4 million people show up for the governor's race. That’s nearly a million more than ever showed up before. We had record numbers of people that are registered, record turnout, there was no voter suppression. So, it was all made up. And it's just like voter fraud, we show that President Trump did not win the state of Georgia. It’s not healthy for American democracy and both of them need to quit it and people need to win their races on their own merits.
VELSHI: Again, I agree with your last point there, but there is a distinction between lying about voter fraud and discussing whether states like Georgia, states like Texas and others do make it difficult for people who have a constitutional right to vote, right? The bottom line is the Constitution and its amendments say who can vote in America and every one of the people should have an easy time voting, right? So, long lineups, rules that discourage people from voting. Shorter advanced polling, harder ways to vote, which is Stacey Abrams complaint. That’s valid. Making it easy to vote for everyone is valid.
RAFFENSPERGER: And none of that has happened in Georgia. We actually have down 17 days of early voting, two days of Sunday for any county that wants it. We have no excuse absentee voting, which we’ve had in place since 2005. We have record registrations and last year, we had 5 million people show up for the presidential ballot.
VELSHI: You do not think you can do things in Georgia to improve the access for people to vote? That you can make it a better voting system?
RAFFENSPERGER: We already have. We already have.VELSHI: But can you do more?
RAFFENSPERGER: We moved away from signature match. We already moved away from signature match on the absent ballot and we went to driver's license number with photo I.D. That’s is what they’ve been using in Minnesota for ten years. It is a very objective criteria. So, we can then pull some of that subjective criteria and put in objective criteria and help restore voter confidence. That’s a good thing. We increased the number of days of early voting. And last November, our lines were less than one hour in all precincts in the afternoon of Election Day. So, the counties have done a great job working on those long lines that we had previously.
