Election experts in Georgia often ponder a major discrepancy — the gap between the security of the state’s election apparatus and the amount of trust some people have in it.
“I made this point back in 2020, when I went and watched an audit in our recount in Bartow County,” said Matt Mashburn, the former acting chair of the Georgia State Election Board. “What I said was the great paradox of our time is we have the most looked at, accessible, transparent, checked and rechecked election that’s ever been possible in Georgia’s history, and nobody believed it.”
Mashburn spoke as part of a series of bipartisan discussions on election protection at Georgia State University on Tuesday, the first day of general election early voting in Georgia.
According to an NPR/PBS/Marist poll released this month, 58% of Americans are either concerned or very concerned that voter fraud will occur this year — even though 76% of Americans in the same poll said they are confident or very confident that their state and local governments will carry out a fair and accurate election.
It’s that second group that has the right idea, said Sarah Tindall Ghazal, a member of the state election board.