The Georgia State Election Board voted on Friday to pass a rule that mandates all counties to hand-count ballots in the upcoming election.
The proposal requires ballots to be hand-counted by precincts in addition to machine-counting already in place. The poll manager and two poll officers will be tasked with unsealing the ballot boxes and making independent counts of the ballots. After their counts match one another, they are to compare that to the machine count and resolve any discrepancies.
The rule aims to “ensure the secure, transparent, and accurate counting of ballots.”
Critics of the proposal claim it will substantially slow down the ballot-counting process, causing delays in Georgia’s election results.
