The Georgia State Elections Commission on Friday approved a brand new rule that requires poll staff to count the variety of ballots by hand.
The committee voted 3-2 to adopt the rule, defying recommendations from the attorney general’s office, the State Department and an association of county election officials. Three committee members who were praised by former President Donald Trump at a rally in Atlanta last month voted to adopt the measure.
In a memo sent to election board members on Thursday, Attorney General Chris Carr’s office said there isn’t a provision in state law to hand-count ballots on the precinct level before they’re turned over to the county election official for vote counting. Therefore, the memo said, the rule is “unbound by any law” and “is likely exactly the kind of impermissible legislation that agencies should not be allowed to implement.”
The latest rule requires that the variety of ballots – not the variety of votes solid – should be counted by three poll staff at each polling station until all three results are the identical. If there are greater than 750 ballots in a scanner at the tip of voting, the election official can determine not to start out counting until the following day.
Several county election officials who spoke out against the rule during a public hearing before the vote warned that manually counting ballots at polling stations could delay the announcement of results on election night. They also apprehensive that it could put an extra burden on poll staff who have already got a protracted day at work.
