Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in an opinion piece published by the Washington Examiner, said his office opened an investigation into unsolicited voter registration mailings from a group linked to Elon Musk's America PAC and revisited past problems with Stacey Abrams' New Georgia Project, arguing that election integrity concerns cross party lines.
The column recounts that last month a longtime Georgia voter received a registration application addressed to his dog along with the handwritten note: 'You do realize Sheba is my dead dog, right?' Raffensperger wrote that complaints then poured in from Georgians who had received applications addressed to deceased parents, late spouses and children.
Raffensperger traced the mailings to Ready to Register, an organization he described as linked to America PAC, the political group founded and funded by Musk. He noted a registration application is not a ballot and does not automatically place anyone on voter rolls, but wrote that third-party organizations 'have a responsibility to use accurate information and obey the law.'
What the Right Is Saying
Raffensperger argues his office applies scrutiny regardless of a group's political affiliation, writing: 'If an organization on the Left submits fraudulent applications, we act accordingly.' He wrote that if someone deliberately violates registration law, 'the consequences are severe,' and framed the fight to maintain confidence at the ballot box as non-partisan.
He describes Georgia's approach as making it 'easy to vote and hard to cheat,' citing citizenship verification, photo identification requirements, routine list maintenance to remove registrations of deceased or relocated voters, equipment testing, chain-of-custody procedures and a rigorous auditing process.
What the Left Is Saying
The op-ed recounts that Abrams and her allies have publicly disputed characterizations of their past registration work. According to Raffensperger, after problems emerged with 2014 applications from the New Georgia Project — founded by Abrams and later led by Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) — she accused election officials of refusing to process them, appearing before media beside boxes she said represented tens of thousands of unprocessed forms.
Raffensperger wrote that Abrams claimed applications had disappeared into a bureaucratic 'black hole,' activists occupied the Secretary of State's office in protest resulting in eight arrests, and a lawsuit sought to force officials to add disputed applicants to Georgia's rolls — which he said a judge rejected. The column does not include direct responses from Abrams or New Georgia Project representatives.
The piece also notes that after losing the 2018 gubernatorial race to Kemp, Abrams refused a traditional concession and challenged the legitimacy of Georgia's electoral system, with allies at Fair Fight Action carrying claims into federal court where, per Raffensperger, they 'lost repeatedly.'
What the Numbers Show
Raffensperger states the New Georgia Project claimed to have submitted approximately 85,000 applications during its 2014 campaign. In Muscogee County alone, he wrote, the elections director estimated roughly 80% of about 10,000 applications from the organization contained deficiencies such as alleged forgeries, missing information, duplicates and illegible handwriting.
The column also cites eight arrests stemming from activists occupying the Secretary of State's office, and describes Georgia's routine list maintenance that removes registrations belonging to people who have died, relocated or otherwise become ineligible.
The Bottom Line
Raffensperger presents the Ready to Register investigation as ongoing and warns 'the fight to maintain confidence at the ballot box is not partisan,' arguing election integrity and voter access are compatible goals rather than competing ones. He wrote that Georgia delivers both, while warning third-party groups face severe consequences for deliberately violating registration law.
As an opinion piece by a state official about his own office's work, the account reflects Raffensperger's framing; independent verification of the 2014 deficiencies and details of the current investigation were not included in the column. The op-ed suggests both left- and right-aligned organizations will face scrutiny as Georgia continues its election administration efforts.