The Georgia state election board voted Friday to require counties to hand-count ballots in this November’s election, according to NBC News.
The move was fueled by a conspiracy theory pushed by Donald Trump and his allies about the security of voting machines following the former president’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The vote was 3-2, with the three members praised by Trump supporting the move, and a Democratic and independent GOP-appointed member of the board strongly opposing it.
“Everyone that I have heard from personally is against it,” Democratic member Sara Tindall Ghazal said before the vote.
“The overwhelming number of election officials that have reached out to me have been opposed to this,” State Election Board chairman John Fervier an independent who opposed the move, said.
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state and attorney general also opposed the move arguing that it could delay the results of the presidential election in the crucial battleground state and that the move is likely unlawful.
“We consider these major changes to the election process. I guess we have several concerns. Number one is the actual counting of the number of ballots that you have at the precinct. That’s going to take time,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said.
“Everything that we’ve done for the last six years has to speed up the process to give the voters the results quicker, and all of a sudden now they’re adding an element that it’s actually going to take longer,” he continued.
“We’re too close to the election,” Raffensperger added in a statement to CNN. “We’re 50 days out before we have our election. In fact, we’re really just three weeks before we start early voting, and it’s just too late in the cycle.”
The office of Georgia’s Republican Attorney General Chris Carr also warned the board against the move, “These proposed rules are not tethered to any statute — and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do.”
“The Board runs substantial risk of intruding upon the General Assembly’s constitutional right to legislate. When such intrusion occurs, the Board rule is highly likely to be ruled invalid should it be challenged,” Elizabeth Young, a senior attorney in Carr’s office added.
Trump praised the three board members who supported hand counting ballots at a rally last month.
“They’re on fire. They’re doing a great job,” he said. “Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King, three people are all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
