Georgia Secretary of State Slams Rule Changes Being Considered by Election Board
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) slammed proposed rule changes being considered by the State Election Board that would delay results.
“Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “Georgia voters reject this 11th hour chaos, and so should the unelected members of the State Election Board.”
In the statement, he specifically criticized “misguided efforts to impose new procedures like hand counting ballots at polling locations make it likely that Georgians will not know the results on Election Night.”
Last month, the board advanced a petition to amend election rules submitted by Sharlene Alexander, a member of the Fayette County Board of Elections. Her rule changes would require three different election workers to hand count ballots at a polling location, even after they’ve already been counted by a ballot scanner.
“Georgia law already has secure chain of custody protocols for handling ballots, and efforts to change these laws by unelected bureaucrats on the eve of the election introduces the opportunity for error, lost or stolen ballots, and fraud,” Raffensperger said in the statement.
Raffensperger criticizing these rules is a win for voters, but his reasoning — that the rules “undermine key provisions” of Senate Bill 202 and Senate Bill 189 — harms voters because these are voter suppression laws.
The Georgia State Election Board, which has a Republican majority, just passed a new rule last week that would delay the certification of election results.
At a rally earlier this month, former President Donald Trump said that the three GOP members of the board who passed rules like this are “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”
The board will discuss and vote on Alexander’s proposed rule changes at their meeting on Monday, along with considering additional petitions to amend election rules.