Democrats sue to block new Georgia rule requiring hand-count of Election Day ballots

Democrats sued Georgia’s State Election Board on Monday over a new rule that requires counties to hand-count the number of ballots cast at polling places on Election Day, arguing it will allow “for bad-faith actors to claim that fraud has affected election results.”

The new lawsuit escalates an ongoing legal battle between the Democratic Party and Georgia’s GOP-controlled elections board over a series of controversial rules passed in recent weeks that critics say will bring post-election “chaos” into the state.

Backed by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, the lawsuit argues that the hand-counting rule conflicts with state law and that the board overstepped its authority when it approved it. Three Donald Trump allies on the board approved the new rule earlier this month in a 3-2 vote.

“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 Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Party of Georgia and others wrote in the complaint.

Delays caused by the hand-counting, they argued, would “introduce opportunities for bad-faith actors to claim that fraud has affected election results – a result that would undermine public confidence in the results and in the election of Democratic candidates specifically.”

Before the election board passed the new rules, the office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, warned the board members that the new policies probably violated state law and would likely be blocked by a judge if anyone filed a lawsuit.

“These proposed rules are not tethered to any statute — and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do,” Carr’s office told the board, saying the new rules could “easily be challenged and determined to be invalid.”

The letter from Carr’s team echoed concerns from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, who said it was too late to change the rules for the 2024.

A separate lawsuit brought by Democrats against a pair of rules passed by Trump loyalists on the state election board in August is set to go to trial Tuesday. Those rules require county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying them and allow them to “examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections prior to certification of results.”