Georgia State Election Board passes ballot hand-count rule for November election

The Georgia State Election Board passed a rule on Friday requiring precincts to hand-count ballots for the November election and ensure the tallies match the machine count before election certification.

The board voted 3-2 to pass the rule, The Guardian reported. The hand count only applies to election night, not early voting. The board voted 4-1 to table a proposal on hand-counting during early voting after a board member was concerned about information leaking regarding election tallies before all results are counted.

The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, a group of more than 500 Georgia officials and staff, sent a letter to the board on Tuesday, advising against the adoption of the hand-count rule.

The group warned of "the rule’s potential to delay results; set fatigued employees up for failure; and undermine the very confidence the rule’s author claims to seek," according to the letter.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) on Thursday said that the rule would cause delays at the state's 2,400 precincts that would impact when election results are announced, according to USA Today.

"Ninety days before an election, you should not institute major changes to the election process," Raffensperger said. "The more moving parts you have, the more chance you have to fail."

The Georgia attorney general's office had previously told the board that the rule was likely illegal, per The Guardian.

“There are thus no provisions in the statutes cited in support of these proposed rules that permit counting the number of ballots by hand at the precinct level prior to delivery to the election superintendent for tabulation,” the attorney general’s office wrote in a memo. “Accordingly, these proposed rules are not tethered to any statute – and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do.”