Georgia’s state election board voted Friday to approve a new rule that would require poll workers to count ballots manually.
The board voted 3-2 to approve the rule, going against the advice of the state attorney general, the secretary of state and the district election officials association. Three board members, who were praised by former President Trump at a rally in Atlanta last month, voted to approve the measure.
In a memo sent to election board members on Thursday, the state Atty. Office said there is no provision in state law that allows ballots at the precinct level to be counted by hand before being taken to county election inspectors for counting, Lt. Gen. Chris Carr said. As a result, the memo said, the rule is “not tied to any statute” and “likely constitutes the exact type of unconstitutional legislation that agencies cannot enforce.”
The new rule requires three separate election officials to count the number of paper ballots, not the number of votes, at each polling place until all three counts are equal. If the scanner has more than 750 ballots inside the polling place, the polling place manager can decide to start counting the next day.
Several county election officials who spoke against the rule during a pre-vote public comment period warned that manually counting ballots at polling places could delay the reporting of election night results. They also worried about placing an additional burden on field workers who had already put in a long day.
Brumbeck writes for the Associated Press.
