John Jefferson
The Georgia state election board is set to meet on Friday and consider another round of last-minute election changes that could cause delays and confusion after election day in a critical battleground state.
The Republican majority on the board is expected to approve a rule that would require three people in every precinct to check machine-vote tallies by hand-counting the election results. Voting experts have long warned that hand-counts are time consuming, costly, and less reliable than machines. It’s a process that nonetheless has been favored by conservative activists who doubt the results of the 2020 election.
The board will also consider proposed rules that would mandate daily hand-counts of early votes, require public reports of voters who have cast a ballot during early voting, allow for greater poll-watcher access during tabulation, distinguish emergency and mail-in ballots, and require that ballots be tracked through the mail.
The five-member board has flown under the radar until recently, when a new three-member Republican bloc began pushing through a series of rule changes that many worry could slow down the certification process this fall. In recent months, it has come under intense scrutiny as it adopted new rules that allow local election board members to undertake an undefined “reasonable inquiry” before they can certify an election, and gives them the right to access unlimited documents.
The board also passed a rule that requires an explanation for any mismatch between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters who check in at a precinct. Election officials have said that those mismatches are typical and usually have benign explanations like a voter deciding not to cast a ballot after showing up at the polls.
Donald Trump has praised the three members who have enacted these rules by name, calling them “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory”. Janice Johnston, the most senior member of the bloc, attended that rally and stood up and waved to the crowd.
Local election officials throughout the state – and some members of the board – have urged the board to halt changing the rules around elections so close to voting, warning it is going to strain already resource-strapped election offices and cause confusion.
“Our concerns are the timing of these rules,” said Travis Doss, executive director of the Richmond county board of elections in Augusta and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, which has written to the board urging it to halt changes before the election.
Mail-in ballots are set to begin going out on 7 October and early voting will begin 15 October. Ballots to military and overseas voters are being mailed out 21 September.
Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican whose seat was removed from the state board by lawmakers after the 2020 election, has also condemned the changes.
“It is far too late in the election process for counties to implement new rules and procedures, and many poll workers have already completed their required training,” his office wrote in a letter to the board obtained by the New York Times earlier this week.
“If the board believes that rules changes are important for an election, the process should begin much sooner to allow for smooth implementation and training, and include the input of election officials.”
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