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Georgia\u2019s State Election Board on Friday voted to approve a new rule that requires poll workers to count the number of paper ballots by hand.<\/p>\n
The board voted 3-2 to approve the rule, going against the advice of the state attorney general\u2019s office, the secretary of state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
In a memo sent to election board members Thursday, the office of state Attorney General Chris Carr said no provision in state law allows counting the number of ballots by hand at the precinct level before the ballots are brought to county election superintendent for vote tallying. As a result, the memo says, the rule is \u201cnot tethered to any statute\u201d and is \u201clikely the precise kind of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new rule requires that the number of paper ballots \u2014 not the number of votes \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n