The Georgia State Board of Elections has passed a resolution requiring counties across the state to manually count ballots in the upcoming 2024 presidential election in November.
board member Voted According to NBC News, on Friday from 3 p.m. to 2 p.m.
The measure, which would require poll workers to open ballot boxes and manually count ballots at the end of Election Day, was approved by three committee members who have been praised by former President Donald Trump but opposed by the state's Democrats and the Republican secretary of state and attorney general.
Board member Janelle King dismissed concerns about the rule because she believes “we're not going to end up in a situation where we have candidates who think the count is wrong or there's something wrong and they want an audit. We're going to be able to find that out early on.”
In July, Georgia Democrats and Republicans called on the state's elections board to phase out electronic voting machines and replace them with paper ballots, Breitbart News reported.
“Following the 2020 presidential election, several counties in Georgia that used Dominion Voting Systems software reported experiencing glitches during the election,” the media outlet reported.
The commission voted in August to require county election officials to conduct a “reasonable investigation” before certifying election results to the state, according to the Associated Press.
Supporters say the measure is necessary because county election board members must swear that the results are accurate and must be able to fully verify that the totals are correct before taking the oath.
“Why wouldn't we want to assume there's some oversight,” asked State Election Commissioner Janice Johnston, who was appointed to the commission by the state Republican Party. “It's the commission's duty to do that oversight in a fair and reasonable manner.”
It's worth noting that former President Donald Trump holds a three-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia, Breitbart News reported Wednesday. Atlanta Journal-Constitution/University of Georgia Poll.
