Conservatives on Georgia’s state election board have passed a rule requiring that ballots be hand-counted three times.
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.»
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.
