What Georgia’s New Rule Requiring Hand Counts of Ballots Could Mean for November

With fewer than 50 days until November 5, allies of Donald Trump serving on the election board in Georgia voted for a rule that could gum up the democratic process in a key swing state—requiring counties to hand-count ballots. “Beyond violating settled law, this change reeks of an attempt to undermine Georgia’s ability to conduct free, fair, and accurate elections,” Justin Berger, election law counsel at the nonprofit Informing Democracy, said in a statement Friday, warning that the requirement would “increase the opportunity for human error and confusion, be difficult, costly, delay the process, and risk ballot security itself.”

Some Republicans have even spoken out against the move, with Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr arguing that the board is “intruding” on the general assembly’s authority. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told CNN on Thursday that the election was “too close” for a rule change. “It’s just too late in the cycle,” said Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s demand to “find” enough votes to defeat Joe Biden.

Of course, Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results failed, partly because enough Republicans like Raffensperger wouldn’t go along. But attacks on the system have grown more coordinated since, as I reported Thursday, with election deniers seeking more control over the democratic process—sparking concerns that MAGA Republicans could seek to undermine the system from within.

In Georgia, which was crucial to Biden’s victory in 2020 and is sure to prove consequential again in November, those fears escalated earlier this year when Trump allies Janice Johnston, Rick Jafferes, and Janelle King took control of the state election board—earning praise from Trump at an August rally in Atlanta. “They’re doing a great job,” Trump told supporters, describing the three as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory.”

But the vote isn’t about making elections “better,” as King claimed Friday; for all Trump’s lies about election fraud, the process is already secure, as experts and officials have emphasized. What the last-minute rule change could do instead—if allowed to stand—could be to make it easier for Trump to contest the results and undermine faith in the process. The board is “trying to subvert safe and secure election processes based on conspiracies,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, wrote Friday. “Hand counting is slower, costlier, and more prone to error. This change is meant to sow doubt about the election, plain and simple.”