03336cam a2200325 i 4500 546670543 TxAuBib 20220203120000.0 211123s2021||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u oc2021003359 9781637630334 HRD 25.00 1637630336 HRD 25.00 TxAuBib rda Raffensperger, Brad. Integrity counts [BOOK] / Brad Raffensperger ; written in collaboration with Richard Parker. Brentwood, Tennessee : Forefront Books, 2021. 239 pages ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-239). Integrity stands as the cornerstone of American democracy. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State, defended American democracy by refusing to bend to demands that he change the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election in his state. Raffensperger’s defense of democracy made him a target of President Donald Trump for months following the election, culminating in an hour-long phone call in which the president told him, “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” the exact number he needed to win Georgia’s sixteen Electoral College votes. Once again, Raffensperger refused. Georgia voters had spoken. A lifelong conservative Republican who had financially supported President Trump’s reelection campaign and voted for Trump, Raffensperger called for a hand recount of every vote to confirm the results and affirm the integrity of Georgia’s election. Still President Trump persisted in his personal attacks. One of the most troubling questions in the wake of the 2020 election, Raffensperger says, is whether America will see every candidate who loses a major election refuse to accept the results and, instead, set out to raise money and build support on unfounded claims of fraud and corruption. To avoid that prospect, Americans must come to terms with the scope of the problem, but doing so won’t be comfortable for either party. Either party because the 2020 crisis was not unprecedented in Georgia. By November 2020, Raffensperger had been challenging the claims of a “stolen election” for nearly two years. In the fall of 2018, after Democrat Stacey Abrams lost the race for governor of Georgia, she told a crowd of supporters, “So, to be clear, this is not a speech of concession. Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede.” The similarities don’t end there, and when considered with some care, they paint a troubling picture of an all-too-bipartisan willingness to undermine the integrity of our democracy, and the public’s confidence in it, for the sake of personal and partisan gain. Provided by publisher. 20220203. Presidents United States Election 2020. Contested elections Georgia. Contested elections United States. Electoral college United States. United States Politics and government 2017-2021. Georgia Politics and government 1951-