Georgia’s State Election Board has passed a rule requiring that ballots in this year’s presidential election be hand-counted, raising new questions in the pivotal swing state less than 50 days before Election Day.
The board passed the new rule, which requires votes to be hand-counted three times before being deemed official, by a 3-2 vote on Thursday despite objections from state election officials who warned that the change is coming too late and could spark election chaos.
Georgia is among at least seven battleground states that could prove consequential in November and is already likely to be under the microscope due to former President Donald Trump’s repeated false claims that the Peach State’s 2020 election, which was narrowly but legitimately won by President Joe Biden, was “stolen” from him.
“It’s too close to the election,” said State Election Board Chairman John Fervier, a Republican who voted against the rule change, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s too late to train poll workers.”
“If the Legislature had wanted this, they would have put it in statute,” he added. “You can’t read any place in statute where this is. This board is not here to make law.”
A voter is pictured placing a paper ballot in a ballot box in this undated file photo. Georgia’s Republican-controlled State Election Board this week voted in favor of a rule requiring ballots to be hand-counted… A voter is pictured placing a paper ballot in a ballot box in this undated file photo. Georgia’s Republican-controlled State Election Board this week voted in favor of a rule requiring ballots to be hand-counted three times before certification.
Alfonso Sangiao
Three other Republican board members who were previously praised by Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, as “pit bulls” all voted in favor of the change, while arguing that potentially delaying results for days or weeks for the hand count would ensure “accuracy.”
Complaints about the rule also arose during a public hearing before the board voted, with Chatham County election worker Barbara Gooby reportedly warning that the change would introduce “huge opportunities for chaos, error, voter insecurity and lawsuits” and a “very real opportunity for human error.”
During a CNN interview on Friday, Trump-appointed U.S. Election Assistance Commission Chairman Benjamin Hovland said that there were “real risks” that the rule change could cause “confusion and lawsuits.”
“Certainly you never want to see changes to the procedures or election law right before an election,” Hovland said. “Hand-counting does take a very long time, it is very difficult. That’s why we implemented equipment to do that.”
“You do pre-election testing, you do post-election testing to verify that the equipment is counting things like it’s supposed to,” he added. “When you’re talking about millions of ballots and dozens of races on each of those, the ability of people to [hand count] in an accurate way just doesn’t match up.”
The hand-counting rule may still be struck down in court, with Republican Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr writing in a letter this week that the board was pushing changes that “very likely exceed the board’s statutory authority.”
“[Carr] has stated that these rules would not withstand a legal challenge, and I have worked every day to strengthen Georgia’s election law to ensure our elections remain safe, secure, and free,” Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement emailed to Newsweek.
“Georgia voters can be confident that the reforms we’ve enacted since 2020 and have defended in court from frivolous attacks by Stacey Abrams will ensure only American citizens vote in our elections,” he added. “Our reforms have made Georgia elections the safest in the nation and I work every day to keep it that way.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to Georgia’s State Election Board via online contact form on Friday.
Regardless of the rules, there have already been indications that the election outcome is likely to be disputed by Trump if he loses. The former president has baselessly suggested that a victory by Vice President Kamala Harris this year can only be accomplished if Democrats “cheat.”
Trump has a long history of making evidence-free claims of massive election fraud that predates his 2020 onslaught. After former President Barack Obama was reelected by defeating GOP Senator Mitt Romney in 2012, Trump claimed that the result was a “total sham.”
In 2016, Trump insisted that Senator Ted Cruz “stole” Iowa’s GOP primary, while also claiming that fraud was to blame for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton winning that year’s popular vote despite losing the Electoral College. He also claimed without evidence that Democrats were participating in “illegal voting” during the 2018 midterms.
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