ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia State Election Board voted Friday to approve a new rule that requires poll workers to count paper ballots by hand.
The board voted 3-2 to approve the rule, against advice from the state attorney general’s office, the secretary of state’s office and an association of county election officials. Three board members who were praised by former President Donald Trump at a rally in Atlanta last month voted to approve the measure.
The new rule requires that paper ballots at each polling place be counted by three separate poll workers until all three counts are the same. If there are more than 750 ballots in a scanner at the end of voting, the polling place manager can decide to start the count the next day.
Several county election officials who spoke out against the rule during a public comment period ahead of the vote warned that manually counting votes at polling places could delay the reporting of election results. They also worried about placing an additional burden on poll workers who have already worked a long day.
