The US state of Georgia has ordered a hand rely of ballots solid in November’s election, probably creating delays in a system that took days to ship a definitive nationwide outcome 4 years in the past.
Georgia’s elections board voted 3-2 to require the hand rely, regardless of the objections of state officers and ballot employees.
Round 5 million votes for president have been solid in Georgia in 2020, with Joe Biden beating Donald Trump in the important thing battleground state state by a margin of just below 12,000.
Whereas hand counting of ballots is widespread in lots of nations, together with the UK, this can be very uncommon in US elections.
The rule handed on Friday requires three ballot employees in every of the state’s 6,500 voting precincts to start counting ballots on election night time.
The transfer was opposed by the state’s high election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, who warned {that a} hand rely would introduce the potential for “error, misplaced or stolen ballots, and fraud”.
In a telephone name following the 2020 election, Trump pressured Raffensperger to “discover 11,780 votes” – a transfer which together with different alleged efforts to overturn the outcome led to prison expenses towards Trump and a few of his allies.
Trump’s supporters on the Georgia elections board argued that hand counting will make the election safer.
“What I don’t wish to do is about a precedent that we’re OK with pace over accuracy,” stated board member Janelle King.
Opponents of the transfer included county elections supervisors, ballot employees and voting rights organisations, a number of of whom testified at a listening to on Friday.
They warned of delays and doable chaos brought on by altering the principles so near the election. Early voting in Georgia begins on 15 October. Election day is on 5 November.
Ethan Compton, the election supervisor for Irwin County, stated that ballots had already been despatched to members of the navy posted abroad.
“The election has begun,” Mr Compton stated. “This isn’t the time to vary the principles. That may solely decrease the integrity of our elections.”
The board’s chair, John Fervier, a Republican, voted towards the rule for that purpose.
“I do suppose it is too near the election,” he stated.
Fervier warned that the board might not have the authorized authority to require hand counting, and the change is sort of sure to face authorized challenges.
Voting rights organisations say hand counting would complicate the voting system and is much less correct than machine counting.
Many Republicans, in the meantime, consider Trump’s oft-repeated however false claims that the voting system is riddled with fraud and has been “rigged” by Democrats.
The vote on the Georgia guidelines change got here as early voting got under way on Friday in different states together with Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota.
