Georgia Election Workers Won’t Have to Hand Count Ballots After All
In a win for voters, a judge temporarily blocked a last-minute Georgia State Election Board (SEB) rule that would have required election officials to verify the vote total by hand counting ballots after polls close on Election Day. Accordingly, the rule will not be in effect for the upcoming election.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney described the controversial rule as “too much, too late” in an order issued yesterday. McBurney added that “the administrative chaos that will — not may — ensue” as a result of the hand count rule “is entirely inconsistent with the obligations of our boards of elections (and the SEB) to ensure that our elections are fair, legal, and orderly.”
Within the past month, Georgia’s state election board has faced seven lawsuits over its restrictive rules — this being one of them.
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The Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration filed a lawsuit on Oct. 2 challenging six new SEB rules adding what they called burdensome and unnecessary requirements to the vote counting process.
Yesterday’s order solely addresses the hand counting rule, that would have —according to McBurney’s ruling—“introduced a new and substantive role on the eve of election for more than 7,500 poll workers who will not have received any formal, cohesive, or consistent training and that allows for our paper ballots — the only tangible proof of who voted for whom — to be handled multiple times by multiple people following an exhausting Election Day.”
McBurney is yet to weigh in on the other five rules challenged by the lawsuit, which are set to go into effect on Oct. 22—only two weeks before Election Day. They include:
- Poll Watcher Rule: Increases the number of designated locations where poll watchers may observe the election process.
- Daily Reporting Rule: Requires counties to issue a daily report with details of which voters have cast their votes early or through absentee ballots.
- Reconciliation Reports Rule: requires counties to publish online reports detailing the difference between the number of total ballots cast and the total number of voters reported voting in each precinct.
- Reconciliation Rule: requires either each county board of elections or election workers to verify the total ballot count against tabulation tape from each individual ballot scanner in the county.
- Recorded Count Rule: requires an election worker and two witnesses to record the ballot count from the tabulation tape in every ballot scanner in a given polling location.
The last-minute rules, pushed by three MAGA members of the board who former President Donald Trump previously praised as “pit bulls,” have been widely criticized by not just Democrats, but top Georgia Republicans as well.
SEB Chair John Fervier (R), who voted against the rules, has objected to the “activism” of the three members, saying, “Our job is to clarify law, not create new law.”
When asked about the new rules, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said, “What [the SEB is] doing now is slowing down the process. And that’s just a conspiracy theory waiting to happen because you’re not getting those quick results. And that’s not helpful for our public.”
On Sept. 19, Attorney General Christopher Carr’s (R) office sent a memorandum to the SEB advising them that the rules “very likely exceed the Board’s statutory authority and in some instances appear to conflict with the statutes governing the conduct of elections.”
Cobb County election officials noted at the Oct. 15 hearing that Raffensper has refrained from providing training on the new rules until courts rule on their validity. They cited the lack of guidance as a reason for why the rules should be temporarily paused for this election.
McBurney described the Hand Count Rule as having a “laudable goal” but questioned the practicality of introducing such a rule so close to the election.
“If the goal is orderly, reliable elections, why the prudent — in terms of reasonableness — approach wouldn’t be to say, ‘let’s try this next election’.”
Six other lawsuits challenging SEB rules, including the Hand Count Rule, are pending in courts across the state.