Forty-six days before the election, Georgia’s state election board approved a new rule requiring a hand count of paper ballots cast on election day before tabulating votes.
The three Trump-aligned members that make up the majority on the board approved the rule that would require three people in every precinct to check machine-vote tallies by hand-counting the election results, despite a warning from the state attorney general that this rule and others in consideration “very likely exceed the board’s statutory authority”.
Chair John Fervier – an appointee of Brian Kemp, the Republican governor – and Democratic appointee Sara Tindall Ghazal voting against.
“We are going against the advice of our attorney by voting in the affirmative,” said Fervier.
“Mr Chairman, I have to point out that every time you make a statement that this could be against the law, you are welcoming lawsuits,” board member Janelle King said in response. “I am getting really tired of encouraging lawsuits.”
Voting experts have long warned that hand-counts are time-consuming, costly and less reliable than machines. It is a process that nonetheless has been favored by conservative activists who doubt the results of the 2020 election.
Advocates have also warned that Georgia’s proposed rule is contrary to state law and an avenue for error.
“What we are talking about in plain terms is asking for thousands of people to handle ballots before their totals are known and were formally reported without virtually a single safeguard in place, even without considering the risk of any bad actors,” Marisa Pyle, senior democracy defense manager for All Voting Is Local, said during the public comment portion of Friday’s meeting. “Elections staff are begging you stop.”
The board will also consider proposed rules that would mandate daily hand counts of early votes, require public reports of voters who have cast a ballot during early voting, allow for greater poll-watcher access during tabulation, distinguish emergency and mail-in ballots, and require that ballots be tracked through the mail.
Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney general, issued a letter on Thursday to inform the board that the proposed rules are likely illegal. A proposed rule permitting poll watchers more access would go “beyond the statutorily-designated list of places a superintendent may decide to place poll watchers”, Carr wrote, adding that if adopted, it would “very likely be subject to legal challenge as invalid”.
The five-member board has flown under the radar until recently, when a new three-member Republican bloc began pushing through a series of rule changes that many worry could slow down the certification process this fall. In recent months, it has come under intense scrutiny as it adopted new rules that allow local election board members to undertake an undefined “reasonable inquiry” before they can certify an election, and gives them the right to access unlimited documents.
The board also passed a rule that requires an explanation for any mismatch between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters who check in at a precinct. Election officials have said that those mismatches are typical and usually have benign explanations like a voter deciding not to cast a ballot after showing up at the polls.
One of the primary concerns from elections directors is about how the change in procedure would create a chain-of-custody problem in voting centers. Currently, precinct officials never touch a cast ballot. After a voter completes a ballot by touchscreen, their ballot is printed and then the voter places it in a tabulator which scans it and deposits it into a sealed box.
The rule change would have poll workers unseal that box, count ballots by hand and then return ballots to a container to be sealed again. The process introduces the potential for counting errors that would delay a count. State law – which legislators changed in 2021 – requires counties to have a complete tabulation by 11.59 on election day.
The Georgia state representative Saira Draper, testifying before the committee, said the board was trying to “sow chaos” before the election.
“We are setting up our counties to fail,” she said. “When these counties fail, when there are inaccuracies if there is a result of the election that some of the members of this board do not like, they will be able to point to those inaccuracies.”
In previous meetings over the year, Trump-aligned activists packed the meeting hall. On Friday, much of the audience was composed of elections officials from across the state. “The world is going to hold us accountable for the decisions we make,” said Milton Kidd, elections director for Douglas county.
Donald Trump has praised the three members of the elections board who have enacted the recent rules by name, calling them “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory”. Janice Johnston, the most senior member of the bloc, attended that rally and stood up and waved to the crowd.
Before Friday’s meeting, local election officials throughout the state – and some members of the board – had urged the board to halt changing the rules around elections so close to voting, warning it would strain already resource-strapped election offices and cause confusion.
“Our main concerns are the timing of these rules,” said Travis Doss, executive director of the Richmond county board of elections in Augusta and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, which has written to the board urging it to halt changes before the election.
Mail-in ballots are set to begin going out on 7 October and early voting will begin on 15 October. Ballots to military and overseas voters are being mailed out on 21 September.
The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican whose seat was removed from the state board by lawmakers after the 2020 election, has also condemned the changes.
“It is far too late in the election process for counties to implement new rules and procedures, and many poll workers have already completed their required training,” his office wrote in a letter to the board obtained by the New York Times earlier this week.
“If the board believes that rules changes are important for an election, the process should begin much sooner to allow for smooth implementation and training, and include the input of election officials.”
