Georgia Judge Blocks Court Order Requiring Ballots To Be Individually Hand-Counted

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OAN Staff Blake Wolf
5:50 PM – Wednesday, October 16, 2024

A Georgia judge, who ruled on Monday that election officials in his state must certify results even if fraud is suspected, just blocked a separate new measure requiring all Georgia ballots to be hand-counted after the polls close on November 5^th, a measure which he called “too much, too late.”

Judge Robert McBurney struck down the hand count rule, which was passed in September by the State Election Board after passing on a 3-2 vote. The rule would have required precinct poll managers, along with poll officers, to count each individual ballot by hand, ensuring that the tallies match the ballot totals that the machines counted.

McBurney claimed that the “11th-and-one-half hour implementation of the hand count rule” would reduce the public’s confidence in election outcomes, stating that poll workers would be counting the ballots “in a manner unknown and untested in the era of ballot scanning devices” without any uniform training.

“This election season is fraught; memories of January 6 have not faded away, regardless of one’s view of that date’s fame or infamy. Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public,” McBurney continued, adding that the rule would have added “a substantial threat of irreparable harm.”

Officials revealed that there were over 459,000 Georgia voters who cast their ballot within the first day of voting, which more than tripled the previous record of 136,000 in 2020.

Meanwhile, Democrats have come out and applauded the judge’s ruling, including the Harris campaign.

“From the beginning, this rule was an effort to delay election results to sow doubt in the outcome, and our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision to block it,” Democrat party officials stated, relaying the message from the Harris campaign.

“From the beginning, this rule was an effort to delay election results to sow doubt in the outcome, and our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision to block it. We will continue fighting to ensure that voters can cast their ballot knowing it will count,” Harris officials said in a joint statement.

Additionally, the Cobb County board also argued against the new rule, claiming that it would “substantially alter Georgia’s election procedures on the eve of” the upcoming election. Lawyers representing the board referenced Georgia’s attorney general memorandum which argued that the election results changing this close to a major election could “result in voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls.”

An attorney representing the state board argued that the concerns of Democrats and McBurney were merely “hypothetical, on top of conjectures, on top of speculation,” insinuating that they were just excuses.

The state board also added that it wouldn’t be difficult to train the election workers to manually count the ballots ahead of the election.

“What I don’t want to do is set a precedent that we are OK with speed over accuracy,” stated Janelle King, a Republican member of the election board who argued that the delay in results stemming from the manual counting would be worth ensuring the accuracy of the votes.

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