-I live by the motto that numbers don't lie.
The numbers reflect the verdict of the people.
-This past election, I believe we had an all-time record
high of nearly 5 million folks participate
in the November 3rd election.
A little more than 1.
3 million voted via absentee ballot.
-Republican Jeff Duncan is the lieutenant governor of Georgia,
a state former President Trump won in 2016
and lost narrowly in 2020.
Duncan believes there needs to be a conversation
about election reform.
But like every election cycle,
I believe there's an opportunity to take some lessons learned
and look for opportunities to make our elections even better.
Duncan stands apart from some Republican colleagues
in the legislature.
Despite historic voter turnout and no evidence of fraud,
Republican state senators introduced bills
in late January.
-All senators who have bills and resolutions,
please bring them to the secretary's desk at this time.
-That would require a photo ID for absentee voting,
eliminate ballot drop boxes and no excuse absentee ballots,
the latter undoing a 2005 Republican backed law
allowing no excuse absentee voting.
-Looking at an opportunity, is it time
to maybe modernize the way we handle absentee ballots?
I think there needs to be a conversation.
If the answer comes back and says,
"Oh, gosh, the things you're doing will actually hurt
or impede the ability to vote and make it harder,"
I don't think that's something we need to go that direction.
But if there's an opportunity to modernize, right,
whether that's a photo ID or some other form,
certainly there's other ideas that are out there.
But making sure that's easy for 159 countries,
and easy for Republicans and Democrats, right, both.
Election reform is supposed to be bipartisan.
-So, if anyone who's been paying attention,
the whole reason that the New Georgia Project exists
is because of tactics and shenanigans like this.
While most states expanded no fault,
no excuse absentee balloting
because of the pandemic that we're living through,
Georgia was not one of those states.
And now all of a sudden, you know,
they have questions about election integrity.
So, listen, we anticipated it,
and, you know, we are prepared to defend our work
and defend access to the franchise.
-A new push to change election laws extends beyond Georgia.
Republican lawmakers in battleground
states across the country
have pushed for additional voting restrictions.
Last month, the Republican National Committee chair
encouraged state legislatures to take up
election measures after Trump's loss.
-We are gonna come out of this with a mission,
a mission to go to our state legislatures,
to go to our leaders,
and make sure that what we saw in this election
never happens again,
that poll watchers are allowed to observe,
that we put meaningful voter ID laws in the books,
and that we make sure that every American has faith
in our election process.
-According to the Brennan Center for Justice,
more than 100 bills have been introduced
in nearly 40 states to restrict voting access.
More than a third of them are meant to limit mail voting,
which was a focus of Trump's baseless fraud claims.
-If you count the legal votes, I easily win.
If you count the illegal votes,
they can try to steal the election from us.
-It's worth noting just because bills are being introduced
doesn't mean they'll be enacted.
Any member of a legislature can introduce a bill
that may or may not have support in the broader chamber,
or be signed into law by the governor.
But in many of the states that decided
the 2020 election, like Georgia,
Republicans have the power to enact such laws
that could effect future elections for years to come.
-As Republicans have been reckoning with
just how much they want to turn the page on the Trump era,
I think it's clear that we're seeing many state
Republican parties are going to make that difficult.
Whatever we're seeing on the national level
as far as promoting the president's voter fraud claims,
we're often seeing some of the state parties go even farther.
-[Chanting "Stop the count!" ]
-With conspiracy theories,
with measures to censure people who run afoul of the president,
and even more generally,
just with promoting the Trump angle
on these things in a way that we don't even see
with some of these national Republican leaders.
-We're in a critical, like, redistricting year,
where they are redrawing maps and lines.
So, my hope is that when we win, that it will give us a reprieve,
and we won't have to be fighting these same fights
over the next decade.