Pro-Trump Georgia Election Board Makes Last-Minute Change

LOADING ERROR LOADING A 3-2 Republican majority on Georgia’s State Election Board voted Friday to require local election offices to hand count the state’s millions of ballots, inviting chaos as experts warned the task would prove impossible in the state’s largest counties, which lean Democratic. A few weeks ago, the board empowered county election officials — many of whom have challenged election results in the past — to personally investigate election results and demand reams of election-related documentation, potentially delaying the certification of the state’s results. Friday’s rule requires a hand count of all ballots by individual poll managers and two “sworn poll officers.” If there are any inconsistencies, including between the hand counts and ballot tabulators, they must be resolved. The rule will disproportionately affect Georgia’s largest counties, which lean blue and were key to President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state in 2020. The state’s Republican attorney general’s office advised the board that the change — one of several rules under consideration Friday — was likely unlawful, and it will likely face a challenge in court. “These proposed rules are not tethered to any statute — and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do,” a senior attorney in Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office wrote. And if the state happens to end up determining the winner of the 2024 election — which isn’t unlikely — such a delay could lay the groundwork for a broader effort to determine the presidency through a legal or political fight, or a 2020-style election subversion campaign. Georgia’s State Election Board members discuss proposals for election rule changes at the state capitol on Sept. 20, 2024, in Atlanta. AP Photo/Mike Stewart Studies (and real-world examples) have consistently found that hand counts of ballots are significantly less accurate than machine counts, but Republicans in several states have campaigned to ban machines or add hand-counting requirements in the wake of Trump and his allies’ lies that the machines were used to rig the 2020 election. The rule passed Friday in Georgia states that “the process must be completed within the designated county certification period,” which occurs a week after Election Day. Advertisement “People doing a hand count are going to make mistakes, which can then be exploited to spread lies and sow further distrust in our elections and our election officials,” said Kristin Nabers, Georgia state director of All Voting is Local, a nonpartisan voting rights organization. “Military ballots have already been issued,” Ethan Compton, elections supervisor in south Georgia’s Irwin County, said Friday, The Washington Post reported. That will only lower the integrity of our elections.” Joseph Kirk, elections chief in Bartow County, previously told the paper the rule would “do nothing more than provide exhausted patriots with an opportunity to undermine public confidence through an honest mistake.” Support Free Journalism Consider supporting HuffPost starting at $2 to help us provide free, quality journalism that puts people first. The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, a nonpartisan group whose members include election officials across the state, wrote in opposition to the hand count rule ahead of Friday’s meeting, citing its “potential to delay results; set fatigued employees up for failure; and undermine the very confidence the rule’s author claims to seek.” The association’s president separately said members were “gravely concerned” about last-minute changes to the election rules, saying they could “ultimately lead to errors or delays in voting, which is the last thing anyone wants.” Advertisement And Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, warned Thursday that “activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers.” Georgia was one of several states whose 2020 results Republicans challenged in an effort to overturn the election outcome and reverse Biden’s win; Trump faces several felony counts in Georgia and federally for his efforts to overturn those results, as do several Republicans in Georgia. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/georgia-election-board-new-rule-hand-count-ballots_n_66edb992e4b016b76ff7adb1