(Bloomberg) -- The Georgia State Election Board approved a controversial new rule requiring all ballots to be hand-counted at each of the state’s polling sites, just weeks before early voting is scheduled to start in the pivotal presidential swing state.
The Republican-controlled board, meeting in Atlanta on Friday, pushed the measure through 3-2, despite concerns over the limited amount of time left to implement new measures and the potential for it to delay results in the upcoming election.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had warned that requiring hand counting of ballots at the state’s 2,400 precincts will significantly delay getting results and raise concerns about ballot security.
“What you want to have is as few moving parts as possible because the more moving parts you have, the more chance you have for error,” Raffensperger said Thursday at an election forum in Michigan.
Almost 5 million people voted in the last presidential election in Georgia, which Joe Biden narrowly won, prompting unfounded accusations by former President Donald Trump over voting irregularities.
Trump had previously praised the state’s new voting certification guidelines, and at a recent campaign rally praised members of the election board, referring to them as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
Just hours before the new hand-counting measures were approved, state Attorney General Chris Carr released a letter warning the election board that implementation of the new rules exceeded its authority and undermined the role of the secretary of state.
The board has five appointed members, and since the addition earlier this year of a conservative local media personality, Janelle King, Republican partisan control has prevailed. Last month, the board voted to reopen a previously closed inquiry into the 2020 election results.
The board voted to approve other new measures, including one that allows for poll watchers at vote-tabulating centers. Fair Fight, a Georgia voting-rights organization said the board was “changing election rules in ways that seem meant to create a fail point in our system.”
In a statement, Fair Fight said the new ballot hand-counting rule “increases the potential for disruption, and increases workloads on overworked poll workers. It’s unprecedented to change how elections are run so close to the election.”
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