A county judge in Georgia on Tuesday blocked a new rule mandating a hand count of election ballots across the state. Enacting such a sweeping change for the November election, he said, was “too much, too late.”
Judge Robert C.I. McBurney did not, however, knock down the rule outright; his decision was confined to the current election, halting the rule from taking effect for 2024 while he further weighs its merits.
The rule, passed last month by the State Election Board, would have required poll workers across Georgia to break open sealed containers of ballots and count them by hand to ensure that the total number of ballots matched the total counted by tabulating machines. (It would not have required officials to tally for whom the ballots were cast.)
But Judge McBurney agreed with challenges from several county election boards that the rule was made too close to the election.
“Clearly the S.E.B. believes that the hand count rule is smart election policy — and it may be right,” Judge McBurney said, using shorthand for State Election Board. “But the timing of its passage makes implementation now quite wrong.”
The rule was one of many new election provisions approved in Georgia since summer that hewed closely to policy goals of right-wing election activists. It was a key achievement of the State Election Board, which has recently been governed by a 3-2 right-wing majority.
The hand-counting measure was met with near universal opposition from local election officials, the secretary of state and the attorney general, all of whom warned that the change was made too close to the election. The attorney general’s office specifically warned that the election board could also be overstepping its authority by mandating such a significant change to election procedures.
The rule was set to go into effect on Oct. 22, seven days after early voting started and, as Judge McBurney noted, “on the very fortnight of the election.”
Officials from the State Election Board did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, Democrats celebrated the decision from Judge McBurney.
“From the beginning, this rule was an effort to delay election results to sow doubt in the outcome, and our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision to block it,” the statement said. “We will continue fighting to ensure that voters can cast their ballot knowing it will count.”
In addition to his qualms about the timing of the rule, Judge McBurney criticized it as being overly vague, especially without proper guidance for local officials.
“As of today, there are no guidelines or training tools for the implementation of the hand count rule,” Judge McBurney wrote. “Nor will there be any forthcoming: the secretary of state cautioned the S.E.B. before it passed the hand count rule that passage would be too close in time to the election for his office to provide meaningful training or support.”
The decision was the second such ruling affecting elections in Georgia from Judge McBurney in 24 hours. Late Monday night, he rejected an argument by allies of former President Donald J. Trump that local election officials have the power to refuse to certify election results, finding the process to be mandatory and one that must meet critical deadlines.
In his decision on Tuesday, Judge McBurney, who was appointed to the court by Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, in 2012, made reference to the former president’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election.
“This election season is fraught; memories of Jan. 6 have not faded away, regardless of one’s view of that date’s fame or infamy,” the judge wrote. “Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public.”
The rule itself, the judge wrote, does not necessarily add to uncertainty, and could perhaps fit within the board’s role of passing rules to ensure a free, fair and orderly election in future years. But the late-hour passage of the rule undermined that effort, he found.
“A rule that introduces a new and substantive role on the eve of election for more than 7,500 poll workers who will not have received any formal, cohesive or consistent training and that allows for our paper ballots — the only tangible proof of who voted for whom — to be handled multiple times by multiple people following an exhausting Election Day all before they are securely transported to the official tabulation center does not contribute to lessening the tension or boosting the confidence of the public for this election.”
The post Judge Blocks Hand-Counting of Election Ballots in Georgia appeared first on New York Times.
