Statement On Today's Unlawful Action By The Georgia State Election Board

In Georgia, the Washington Post reported that the Georgia State Election Board, in a 3-2 vote, approved a rule that requires its counties to hand-total election-day ballots this year. In response, Informing Democracy Election Law Counsel Justin Berger shared this statement:

“Let’s be clear: today’s vote by the Georgia State Election Board clearly exceeds statutory authority and is unlawful. The last-minute requirement to hand count the number of ballots will increase the opportunity for human error and confusion, be difficult, costly, delay the process, and risk ballot security itself.

“Beyond violating settled law, this change reeks of an attempt to undermine Georgia's ability to conduct free, fair, and accurate elections.  While members of Georgia’s State Election Board and other anti-democracy actors will continue to attempt to subvert our democracy, the checks and balances in our election system are strong, their efforts will fail, and they will be held accountable for breaking the law.”

Additional Background:

The newly-structured State Election Board passed, and is continuing to consider, administrative rules that are directly in conflict with Georgia law on elections and certification.

On Friday, September 20, the board voted 3-2 to approve the measure to require the hand counting of the number of ballots cast, in addition to the machine count in each of Georgia’s precincts. The office of the Republican state attorney general described the rule as “unlawful” and that “these proposed rules are not tethered to any statute—and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do.”

Dozens of Georgia’s election officials described the rule change as physically impossible for counties to conduct and public comments decried the rule change and its new procedures as too late into the year for staff to train for.

All of this comes on the back of the Secretary of State’s office issuing a directive in 2022, in which it explained that this very activity, “is not something . . . poll workers should do.”