In September, the Georgia State Election Board (GSEB) approved the hand-counting of ballots for the upcoming presidential election in November. The contested ballot counting rule mandates that poll workers count the total number of ballots, not voters, by hand. The process requires three separate poll workers to count the ballots until all counts align, with ballots grouped into piles of 50. Any discrepancies must be documented and addressed by the poll manager. If a scanner holds more than 750 ballots, the counting may be deferred to the next day. (Related: Georgia State Election Board approves HAND-COUNTING OF BALLOTS in 2024 presidential election.)
However, Georgia Democrats argued that this rule violates state law and could lead to chaos after polls close and vote counting begins.
This led the DNC and the Georgia Democratic Party, with support from the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, to file a lawsuit against the GSEB for allegedly overstepping its authority when it passed this rule.
"If the Hand Count Rule is allowed to go into effect, the general election will not be orderly and uniform – large counties will face significant delays in reporting vote counts, election officials will struggle to implement new procedures at the last minute, poll workers will not have been trained on the new Rule because it was adopted too late, and the security of the ballots themselves will be put at risk," lawyers for the DNC, the Democratic Party of Georgia and others wrote in the complaint.
Moreover, the Democrats fear that delays caused by hand-counting would provide an opportunity for false claims of voter fraud. And so, the lawsuit stated: "To protect the sanctity of the state’s laws and to prevent election night chaos, this Court should declare that the Hand Count Rule exceeds SEB’s statutory authority and enjoin that rule from going into effect."
Republican-led group also files lawsuit against Hand Count Rule
Democrats are not the only ones who have filed cases against Georgia's Hand Count Rule. A group known as Eternal Vigilance Action, led by former State Rep. Scot Turner (R-Holly Springs), amended a lawsuit against the GSEB to also challenge the rule.
Eternal Vigilance Action was already suing GSEB over earlier rules related to the certification of election results, including one rule mandating a "reasonable inquiry" into the validity of election results before certification, and another that allows election officials to scrutinize all documentation from the election process. The group seeks to overturn and suspend these rules and the Hand Count Rule until after the November 2024 presidential election.
The manual ballot counting rule, along with the certification rules, are part of a larger lawsuit that will be heard by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox on Oct. 4.
In response, the GSEB speculated that these changes may be politically motivated. But then, Turner argued that his opposition to the rules is based on constitutional principles, claiming that the board, as part of the executive branch, should not have legislative powers.
"They are not an elected body," Turner said. "They are not accountable to voters, therefore they should not have lawmaking authority."
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