Georgia State Election Board approves rule requiring hand count of ballots

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s State Election Board on Friday voted to approve a new rule that requires poll workers to count the number of paper ballots by hand.

The board voted 3-2 to approve the rule, going against the advice of the state attorney general’s office, the secretary of state’s office and an association of county election officials. Three board members who were praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally last month in Atlanta voted to approve the measure.

The new rule requires that paper ballots be counted at each polling place by three separate poll workers until all three counts are the same. If a scanner has more than 750 ballots inside at the end of voting, the poll manager can decide to begin the count the following day.

Several county election officials who spoke out against the rule during a public comment period preceding the vote warned that having to count the ballots by hand at polling places could delay the reporting of election night results. They also worried about putting an additional burden on poll workers who have already worked a long day.

Kate Brumback, The Associated Press