A Georgia judge on Tuesday blocked a new rule by the state’s Board of Elections that requires counties to manually count ballots cast on Election Day, a provision that critics said would cause delays and disruptions in reporting results in the state where the debate is being held.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his decision that the rule would be implemented too close to the election and would create “administrative chaos” given the limited time available to train poll workers.
“[T]he public interest is not served by pausing here. This election season is fraught; memories of January 6 have not faded, regardless of one’s view of the glory or infamy of that date,” he wrote. “Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the election process is in the public’s interest.”
The temporary injunction, which is likely to be appealed, is a victory for Democrats who filed the lawsuit after the State Election Board voted 3-2 last month to adopt the manual counting rule, which would go into effect Oct. 22, two weeks before Election Day.
The rule required election workers to count the number of ballots — not every vote on a ballot — cast on Nov. 5 before sending them to count and tally them, raising concerns that it would unnecessarily delay reporting results and sow uncertainty in a key state in the presidential election.
It was approved by three board members praised by former President Donald Trump and opposed by Democrats in the state, as well as the Republican secretary of state and attorney general.
Days after the vote, the Democratic National Committee and the Georgia Democratic Party, with the support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, filed a lawsuit in a Fulton County court seeking to block the new rule from taking effect.
Democrats praised Tuesday’s order.
“From the beginning, this rule was an attempt to delay the election results to cast doubt on the outcome, and our democracy is stronger because of this decision to block it. We will continue to fight to ensure voters can cast their ballots knowing that it will count,” Harris’ deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks, DNC acting co-director Monica Guardiola and Rep. Nikema Williams, chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, said in a joint statement.
The manual counting of ballots has attracted the attention of many on the right in recent years in response to unsubstantiated claims of hacked voting machines, despite ample evidence that manual counting is more expensive and less accurate than using vote tabulators.
Georgia has been a major focus of Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. He has repeatedly praised the three lawmakers who passed the measure, saying they are “pit bulls fighting for fairness, transparency and victory.”
The three members are Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King. Johnson was appointed to the board by the state Republican Party, while Jeffares was appointed by the Republican-controlled state Senate and King by the GOP-led House of Representatives.
The two members who voted against the measure were appointed by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and the state Democratic Party.
In August, the same Georgia board members passed other new rules that would allow county election board members to conduct “reasonable” investigations before certifying results.
Critics say this could throw the election into chaos because “reasonable investigations” are not defined and an individual board member could block certification for any reason. That ruling is the subject of another Democratic-led lawsuit.
McBurney handed Trump allies another defeat Tuesday by ruling that county election boards in Georgia cannot refuse to certify election results.