The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sued the Georgia State Board of Elections on Monday to block the imposition of new rules that would require counties to hand count votes cast at polling places in the 2024 presidential election.
The DNC said, without providing evidence, that the proposal would create confusion and allow “bad actors to claim that fraud affected election results” and that the rule could be ruled illegal in state court. He declared that there is a law in place, and demanded that it be prevented from taking effect.
The lawsuit, backed by Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign, argues that the hand-count rule violates state law and that the board overstepped its authority when it approved it.
The rule change, approved by supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on a 3-2 vote, would require poll workers to count ballots by hand to ensure the totals matched by machines. It is mandatory to do so.
Lawyers for the DNC, Georgia Democratic Party and others wrote in a complaint filed in Fulton County Superior Court:
If hand counting rules are allowed to be enforced, general elections will no longer be orderly and uniform. Large counties would face significant delays in reporting their vote counts, election officials would struggle to implement new procedures at the last minute, and poll workers would not cooperate. People are being trained on the new rules because they are being implemented too slowly, putting the security of the ballots themselves at risk.
Additionally, the plaintiffs argue that hand-counting delays “create an opportunity for malicious parties to claim that fraud affected the election results, thereby reducing public confidence in the election results and in particular the election of Democratic candidates.” It will harm the.''
In addition to the Democratic Party, other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are members of local election boards in Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Forsyth counties. All of these counties are close to the Atlanta area and are poised to play a key role in determining the winner of the election. This year it's Georgia.
The rules in question simply require a team of poll officials and two other officials at each precinct to separate the ballots into piles of 50 and count them by hand. guardian report.
Everyone must agree on the total number and make sure it matches the machine's tally total.
If there are discrepancies, the reason should be determined and corrected if possible.
