Georgia election board requires ballots be hand-counted despite warning from key GOP state officials

By Marshall Cohen and Jason Morris, CNN

(CNN) — Allies of former President Donald Trump who control the Georgia State Election Board approved a controversial new rule Friday requiring counties to hand-count the number of ballots cast at polling places on Election Day, despite bipartisan objections from election officials and poll workers.

The vote was 3-2, with the three Trump allies supporting the move, and a Democratic and independent GOP-appointed member of the board strongly opposing it, calling it an added step that could delay the results of the presidential election in the battleground state.

The new hand-counting rule requires counties to count by hand the number of ballots cast at a polling place, to make sure it matches the number of ballots tallied by voting machines. The hand-counters won’t be tallying how many votes each candidate received — that’s what the machines do.

The office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, previously warned the GOP-run board that this move would likely be unlawful because state laws don’t allow local election workers to hand-count ballots before the votes are officially counted.

“These proposed rules are not tethered to any statute — and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do,” his office wrote.

Carr’s office also warned the board that it might be too close to the election to make these changes – and that judges might even block these changes because of long-standing precedents that favor maintaining the status quo on the eve of elections.

“The Board runs substantial risk of intruding upon the General Assembly’s constitutional right to legislate. When such intrusion occurs, the Board rule is highly likely to be ruled invalid should it be challenged,” Elizabeth Young, a senior attorney in Carr’s office, said in the letter on Thursday, warning the board that it might be overstepping its authority.

These conclusions echo concerns raised by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has previously blasted the GOP-dominated board as a “mess.”

“We’re too close to the election,” Raffensperger, a Republican, told CNN on Thursday. “We’re 50 days out before we have our election. In fact, we’re really just three weeks before we start early voting, and it’s just too late in the cycle.”

The reshaping of the election board in one of the most critical battleground states of 2024 highlights how some Republicans who cast doubt on the 2020 presidential election results have now taken on prominent roles driving election rules and, in some areas, overseeing elections.

The board also passed a new rule giving poll-watchers access to more of the election process, including vote-counting tabulation areas.

The new rule for tabulation centers was proposed by Julie Adams, a Georgia conservative who is known for peddling conspiracies about election workers and now serves on the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections in Georgia’s largest county.

The state attorney general’s office previously said that poll-watcher rule “seeks to expand the enumerated locations where poll watchers may be designated beyond those places identified in the statute,” and would therefore likely be overturned if challenged in court.

State Election Board member Janelle King, one of the three Republican members of the state election board who Trump praised last month, told reporters before the meeting that the changes are necessary.

“Unfortunately, a few bad apples, a few miscounts here or there, a few double counts, lead to an overshadowing of the great work that many of our election board offices are doing time and time again,” King said. “So this is a very difficult position: Do we maintain the status quo because it’s easier or do we make a few adjustments so that we can be better?”

After the vote, the Democratic and and Republican national committees responded predictably with rebuke and praise, respectively.

“We applaud Georgia’s Election Board members for passing these critical rules and continuing to fight for transparency and accuracy in Georgia’s elections,” RNC chairman Michael Whatley said.

DNC chairman Jamie Harrison said, “This is nothing more than an eleventh-hour effort by Donald Trump and his ‘pit bulls’ to slow down the counting of ballots so they can attack and undermine any result they don’t like,” invoking Trump’s past comments praising the GOP board members.

Georgia election officials and nonpartisan voting experts warned that the new hand-counting requirement could create a massive burden for already-strapped county election offices and that the slower results could create space for confusion and disinformation.

“The overwhelming number of election officials that have reached out to me have been opposed to this,” State Election Board chairman John Fervier an independent who opposed the move, said before the vote. “I do think it’s too close to the election… Most importantly, I believe this is not supported at all in the statute.”

The meeting became contentious before the vote, with verbal sniping between board members and accusations from citizens attending that if Trump loses Georgia again, he might use the new hand-counting rules to question the legitimacy of the results.

“Everyone that I have heard from personally is against it,” Democratic board member Sara Tindall Ghazal said during an exchange with King.

A lawyer for Raffensperger sent a blistering two-page letter to the State Election Board earlier this week warning that new rules are impossible since “many poll workers have already completed their required training.”

Early voting in Georgia starts on October 15. The earliest possible date new rules could take effect if passed is October 14, which is just 22 days before the General Election.

The election board was once led by Georgia’s secretary of state. But after 2020, Trump fought to overturn his loss in the Peach State, pressuring Raffensperger to “find” the thousands of votes Trump needed to win. Raffensperger refused, and in the aftermath, the GOP-led state legislature removed the secretary as a member of the board.

The state election board in Georgia does not certify the results of any election. But it makes rules that guide election administrators and the local boards that certify results before they are sent up to the secretary of state and then the governor. The state election board also investigates election irregularities.

Meanwhile, the board tabled a proposal that would have required election workers to put special markings on mail-in ballots and one to add additional mail tracking requirement for postal votes.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Sara Murray and Mounira Elsamra contributed to this report.

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