Despite opposition from certain state officials and concerns from election officials, the Georgia Election Board reportedly ruled on Friday that ballots must be manually tallied by local precincts.
The Georgia Election Board ruled 3-2 to mandate the hand-counting of ballots, which is an additional layer to the computer count that is already in place.
In a critical battleground state, the rule change occurs less than 50 days prior to Election Day.
Election workers and other members who spoke before the board voted on the rule change expressed apprehension that the hand-counting of ballots would be cost-prohibitive and time-prohibitive, particularly as it approaches the election date and could potentially undermine trust in the conduct of elections.
The proposed rule change elicited concern from some board members, who noted opposition from the election official community.
Concern was also raised over a dearth of resources in the counties to effectively implement the rule change, as well as complications regarding the chain of custody for the ballots themselves.
Prominent Republicans, such as Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have also previously expressed apprehensions regarding the manual counting of ballots.
After the rules were ratified, Raffensperger indicated that there could be a difficult road ahead.
Three members of the board who were aligned with Trump voted in favor of the rule modifications, despite their reservations. Janelle King, one of those members, proposed that precision was more critical than timing.
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