A judge has blocked a new rule requiring Election Day ballots in Georgia to be counted by hand after the close of voting. The ruling came a day after the same judge ruled that county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law. The State Election Board last month passed the rule requiring three poll workers each count the paper ballots by hand after the polls close, per the AP. The county election board in Cobb County had filed a lawsuit seeking to have a judge declare that rule and five others recently passed by the state board invalid, saying they exceed the state board's authority, weren't adopted in compliance with the law, and are unreasonable. In a ruling late Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote that the so-called hand count rule "is too much, too late" and blocked its enforcement while he considers the merits of the case.
McBurney on Monday had ruled in a separate case that "no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance." While they're entitled to inspect the conduct of an election and to review related documents, he wrote, "any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so." Georgia law says county election superintendents—generally multimember boards—"shall" certify election results by 5pm on the Monday after an election, or the Tuesday if Monday is a holiday, as it is this year. The two rulings came as early in-person voting began Tuesday in Georgia.
They're victories for Democrats, liberal voting-rights groups, and some legal experts who've raised concerns that Donald Trump's allies could refuse to certify the results if the former president loses to Vice President Kamala Harris in next month's election. In blocking the hand-count rule, McBurney noted there are no guidelines or training tools for its implementation, and that the secretary of state had said the rule was passed too late for his office to provide meaningful support. "The administrative chaos that will—not may—ensue is entirely inconsistent with the obligations of our boards of elections (and the SEB) to ensure that our elections are fair, legal, and orderly," he wrote. More here.
(More
Georgia stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
