Why the GA GOP election board’s latest ploy 'will lead to absolute havoc for' poll workers: column
According to Fair Fight Chief Executive Officer Lauren Groh-Wargo, and Fair Fight Senior Adviser Allegra Lawrence-Hardy's column published by MSNBC Wednesday, the new rules enforced by Georgia's Republican-led election board earlier this month are even "worse" than described.
The "controversial rule" as CNN described it, "requires counties to count by hand the number of ballots cast at a polling place, to make sure it matches the number of ballots tallied by voting machines. The hand-counters won’t be tallying how many votes each candidate received — that’s what the machines do."
Groh-Wargo and Lawrence-Hardy note, "Over opposition from the Republican secretary of state, the Republican attorney general, the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, voting rights activists, and Georgia citizens on both sides of the aisle, the board, on a 2-3 vote, passed a rule that mandates hand-counting ballots on election night — or in the days after — in every precinct of the state."
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The Fair Fight staffers write:
The new rule requires poll workers to open ballot boxes at the precincts, remove and pile the ballots into stacks of 50, hand-count the ballots (by three poll workers), and reconcile that hand count with the totals on the ballot scanner.
Worse still, the three-member majority passed these rules a mere 25 days before the start of early voting. Logistically, this sweeping, last-minute change will lead to absolute havoc for election officials. And almost by definition, it will slow down the process because now, rather than simply transporting the ballot boxes to a central tabulation location, each box will have to be opened, counted and reconciled before transport.
The pair notes that aside from the fact "there is no evidence that hand-counting ballots at the precinct level has anything to do with election integrity, the new rule is an unauthorized power grab that runs afoul of existing laws and procedures for safeguarding ballots, reconciling totals and tabulating votes."
Groh-Wargo and Lawrence-Hardy note that although Attorney General Christopher Carr sent to the GOP board detailing the ways the members "exceeded its legal power to implement rules and passed rules that conflict with existing Georgia election laws," the pair doubts the Republicans will face "any consequences for their conduct."
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Groh-Wargo's and Lawrence-Hardy's full column is available here.
