This story has been updated to include new information.
The Georgia Board of Elections on Friday passed a controversial bill that would require local precincts to do a hand count in the November election and verify that the numbers match the machine tally before certifying the results.
The rule was one of several being considered Friday as the three Trump-approved Republicans who have held a majority on the commission since May consider a flurry of proposals to change state election procedures in the final months before November. The trio passed the rule despite advice from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, that the commission would likely be illegally usurping the power of the state legislature.
Board Chairman John Favier, who was appointed to the bipartisan position by Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, cited Carr’s warning as he sought to dissuade his colleagues ahead of Friday’s vote.
“We know the Legislature will not hesitate to pass legislation,” Favier said, “and the commission needs to take seriously the guidance it receives from the Attorney General, the Secretary of State’s office and elections experts across the state.”
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Janelle King, the elections commissioner who supported the rule, accused Verbier of “welcoming a lawsuit.” King said she expects the lawsuit will be dismissed.
Former President Donald Trump publicly praised King and two other board members, Janice Johnston and Rick Jeffers, as “pit bulls” fighting for a “win.”
Democratic board member Sarah Tyndall Ghazal joined Fervier in voting against the bill.
State officials protest the commission’s actions
USA Today obtained a copy of Carr’s letter to the committee dated Thursday, in which he said the manual count rule “is perhaps precisely impermissible legislation that should not be implemented by any government agency.”
More generally, Carr said he would not want any new rules on how elections are conducted to be implemented “so close to an election as the rules listed on the Sept. 20 agenda are.” Prior to Friday, 11 proposed rules were listed on the committee’s agenda.
The Georgia Voter Registration and Election Administration Association, a bipartisan group of more than 500 Georgia officials and staff, also expressed concerns in a letter Tuesday about many of the last-minute proposals.
“Election officials are training thousands of poll workers every day across the state and are already working to educate the public about what to expect throughout the voting process and beyond,” the groups wrote. “We respectfully request that these proposed rules and other rulemaking petitions be shelved until 2025.”
Election officials say the proposed manual counting rules in particular could delay results, set up exhausted workers to fail and “undermine the very trust that the rulemakers claim they seek.”
Members of the elections board did not immediately respond to requests for comment ahead of Friday’s meeting. King previously told USA Today that his mission is “to ensure that every vote is counted accurately and that every election going forward is conducted correctly.”
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said at an election-related forum Thursday that Georgia has 2,400 precincts that would have to follow the manual count proposal, raising concerns that it would delay receiving results and jeopardize the security of paper ballots.
“You shouldn’t make any major changes to election procedures 90 days before an election,” Raffensperger said. “The more changes you make, the greater the chance of failure.”
Friday’s meeting kicks off with new controversy
Friday’s meeting got off to a more contentious start when board Chairman John Favier was overruled by three Republicans endorsed by President Trump on whether to add another petition to the day’s agenda, in addition to the 11 rule change proposals and multiple petitions already scheduled for consideration.
Board member Janice Johnston suggested the addition, saying her colleagues could consider it later over lunch and that it was about “filing tax returns.”
Ferbier argued that the committee did not add the petition because it did not have time to get guidance on the petition from the public, the Georgia Attorney General’s Office and the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
But Johnston made a motion to dismiss him, and it was quickly seconded by colleagues Janelle King and Rick Jeffers, who received more votes than Vervier and Democratic board member Sarah Tyndall Ghazal.
“The concern is that waiting until (the next meeting) is a waste of time and that this election will once again lead to people saying it’s too late to accept this, to adopt this and to implement it,” Johnston said.
Controversial last-minute changes
The commission has already come under fire after critics fear that rules passed in August could delay certification and create confusion.
But supporters of the recent changes argue they are aimed at ensuring accuracy and increasing public confidence in the system.
For example, Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and senior Trump administration official, spoke at an August 19 elections board meeting in defense of rules requiring counties to investigate even the smallest discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters at a polling place before certifying the results.
“When you have more ballots than there are voters, it’s a big problem. Everybody wants to address that problem as quickly as possible and get it fixed,” he said.
Georgia Democrats sued the elections board over two rules passed in August that they say could lead to the results not being certified in a timely manner. One rule requires counties to conduct a “reasonable investigation” before certifying results; the other is the same rule that Cuccinelli defended. The lawsuit focuses on a portion of the rule that allows elections board officials to inspect election-related documents created throughout the administration of elections.
Georgia Democrats are asking a judge to instruct local officials that state certification deadlines remain mandatory even after the rule. A state judge has scheduled a trial for Oct. 1 in an effort to quickly resolve the issue.
Citizens express their opinions at the meeting
Board members heard presentations on the proposed rules and received public comment for more than an hour Friday morning before taking a vote. Commenters mostly criticized the proposed changes.
Kristin Neighbors, Georgia state director for All Voting is Local, a nonpartisan voting rights group, said she has personally watched counties do all of their vote counting by hand, and when there have been mistakes, it’s always been human error, not machine malfunction or voter fraud.
“People who do manual counts are going to make mistakes, and those mistakes could be used to spread lies and further increase distrust in elections and election officials,” Neighbors said.
Georgia Democratic Rep. Saira Draper said she thought many of the election experts who spoke out wrongly assumed majority board members were working in good faith on a late-stage election proposal and spoke of operational, logistical and practical concerns.
“What’s happening is we’re setting the county up to fail,” Draper said, “and if the county fails and there are inaccurate results, if there are election results that some of the commission members don’t like, they’re going to point out the inaccuracies and say the election was inaccurate, there’s a lack of integrity in the election.”
Julie Adams, a Republican on the Fulton County Board of Elections in Atlanta, which refused to certify the results of the May primary, defended the rule changes made by the board’s majority. She likened the proposal to manually count votes to double-checking cash issued by a bank.
“The machine counts out $1,000, the teller counts it by hand to make sure it’s $1,000, and then you count it by hand to make sure it’s $1,000,” she said.
Contributor: Erin Mansfield