Authored by Tom Ozimek through The Epoch Occasions (emphasis ours),
The Georgia Election Board has accredited a brand new rule requiring election staff handy depend ballots within the November election and ensure that the numbers match machine counts earlier than the vote may be licensed.
The rule, which was first proposed in August, handed in a 3–2 vote on the morning of Sept. 20, making Georgia the one state within the union to undertake such a requirement as a part of its commonplace vote-counting.
The brand new hand-count regulation was, on the time of reporting, the primary of 11 that the board was set to vote on Friday. The others embrace a proposal that absentee ballots be visually distinct from different sorts of ballots, and one other that requires ballot staff to report the variety of ballots forged from in-person scanners and reconcile these numbers to make sure correct reporting of votes.
Advocates have framed the proposed guidelines as commonsense measures to bolster election safety. Supporters of the hand-count rule, particularly, have argued it will assist enhance public belief within the voting course of.
Critics, such because the Georgia Affiliation of Voter Registration and Election Officers (GAVREO), say the proposed guidelines are, on the entire, impractical, poorly written, and inefficient in attaining their supposed objectives.
“We respectfully ask that these proposed guidelines, and every other petitions for rulemaking, be tabled till 2025,” the group wrote in a Sept. 17 letter to the election board.
GAVREO additionally expressed particular concern concerning the new hand-count rule, arguing within the letter that it may trigger delays and introduce errors.
“We proceed to oppose the foundations for the explanations we now have beforehand said together with: the rule’s potential to delay outcomes; set fatigued workers up for failure; and undermine the very confidence the rule’s creator claims to hunt,” the group wrote.
Chris Carr, Georgia’s Lawyer Basic, issued a letter on Sept. 18 stating that the proposed guidelines could also be inconsistent with present legal guidelines.
“A assessment of the proposed guidelines reveals a number of points together with that a number of of the proposed guidelines, if handed, very doubtless exceed the Board’s statutory authority and in some situations seem to battle with the statutes governing the conduct of elections,” he wrote. “The place such is the case, and as outlined under, the Board dangers passing guidelines that will simply be challenged and decided to be invalid.”
The letter from Carr’s workplace addressed the hand-count rule, stating that the statutes referenced in help of the rule don’t enable for hand-counting ballots on the precinct degree earlier than they’re delivered to the election superintendent for official tabulation.
“Accordingly, these proposed guidelines aren’t tethered to any statute—and are, subsequently, doubtless the exact kind of impermissible laws that businesses can not do,” the letter states.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has additionally expressed concern that last-minute rule adjustments may introduce confusion on election night time.
“Activists in search of to impose last-minute adjustments in election procedures outdoors of the legislative course of undermine voter confidence and burden election staff,” he mentioned in an announcement in mid-August.
At a rally in August in Atlanta, former President Donald Trump praised the three Republican members of the Georgia Election Board, calling them “pit bulls combating for honesty, transparency and victory.”
The Epoch Occasions has reached out to the Georgia Election Board with a request for touch upon the criticism of the hand-count rule and the opposite proposals.
