Don Lemon clashes with Georgia Secretary of State, claims voter suppression could exist despite record turnout

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Don Lemon claims voter suppression in Georgia despite record turnout

The CNN host got into a tense exchange with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on the topic.

CNN's Don Lemon claimed that voter suppression could still be occurring in Georgia despite record turnout during a testy exchange with Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. 

Reffensperger appeared on "CNN This Morning" Wednesday when he was asked about past comments from gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who has repeatedly claimed that voter suppression is occurring in the Peach State. 

"Her argument—it’s silly, it doesn’t make sense, it’s not logical," Raffensperger said. "You have record turnout, you now have photo ID for all forms of voting. We instituted photo ID, we modeled it after Minnesota law—which they’ve been using photo ID for absentee voting now for over 10 years." 

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He added that such measures enhance security and confidence in the vote, pointing to groups on both sides of the political aisle who have noted that Georgia has accessible elections with integrity. Lemon, a left-wing pundit who was recently removed from his primetime show, interjected.

"But just because—listen, just because people are voting in record numbers doesn’t mean that there still aren’t suppressive efforts," Lemon said. "You look at what happened with the drop boxes, the number of drop boxes being reduced in certain areas, especially in Black and Brown areas. And where they can be located, the hours where they can be located."

Lemon then asked why the vote is not being opened to as many places as possible for as many days as possible, adding that it worked during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Raffensperger said that during the pandemic 25% of Georgia residents were voting absentee, and thus additional drop boxes were put in as an administrative rule. He also noted that after the Senatorial runoffs such measures were no longer allowed, and added that drop boxes are now codified into law, with absentee voting down around 80%.

Lemon again interrupted, "But why wouldn’t that be something that you would learn from? If it worked during the pandemic doesn’t mean you have it just during the pandemic. Maybe this was something that actually worked and you would learn from it and say, ‘Wow, look at how many people we gave access to voting, no?"

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Expanding on the current drop box laws, Raffensperger said that they are given based off population, with one for every 100,000 voters, and said that the General Assembly could look back into the topic after the election and see if it needs to be tweaked for the next election cycle. He also claimed that over 40 counties did not have a single drop box in 2020, but now every county is mandated by law to have one. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jeana-Pierre made similar comments to Lemon's last month, claiming that voter suppression and high turnout could take place at the same time. 

Jean-Pierre made the comments during a White House press briefing when a reporter asked her about President Biden's suggestion that Georgia's 2021 voting law was akin to "Jim Crow 2.0."

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Jean-Pierre's comments come just days after Georgia’s Secretary of State Office released numbers showing that 400,000 voters have cast ballots as of Oct. 19, a 63% increase from the same time period during the 2018 midterm elections.

Raffensperger previously told Fox News Digital that the national media showed its left-leaning bias on its coverage of the state voting law last year. The Republican is running for re-election this year after a tumultuous first term marked by former President Trump's attacks on him for defending the integrity of the 2020 race.

Fox News’ Adam Sabes contributed to this report.