Georgia’s State Election Board, running amok.
Photo: Mike Stewart/AP Photo
Despite widespread warnings of chaos and ideological overreach from the offices of the Republican secretary of State and attorney general, a Trump-loyalist majority on Georgia’s State Election Board ordered the bizarre procedure of hand-counting ballots in every single precinct in that intensely competitive battleground state, beginning on Election Night. As the Washington Post explains, the rule change, if implemented, would most definitely slow down determination of Georgia’s election winners and threaten the whole system with unbearable strains:
The board voted 3-2 to approve the measure, which would require the hand count in addition to the customary machine count in each precinct. The rule requires the hand count to take place the night of the November election or the next day. But dozens of election officials said that would be physically impossible in all but the smallest counties. Many also said in public comments Friday that it is far too late in the year to adopt new procedures for which their staffs have not been trained and for which they have no funds.
This particular requirement appears to reflect unfounded right-wing conspiracy theories about voting machines, along with a systemic MAGA distrust of local election offices (particularly in Democratic-governed jurisdictions). Georgia is one of those states in which Team Trump alleged voter fraud in 2020 without any evidence and in violent conflict with the Republican governor and secretary of State who certified Joe Biden’s win there, then refused to “find” more votes for Trump.
As it happens, that same governor and secretary of State are still in office, and the former (Brian Kemp) has reportedly negotiated a détente with Trump after the 45th president attacked him as a bad governor and a bad man at a Georgia rally earlier this year. He is said to be exploring his power to rein in or replace the election board majority. Meanwhile, Republican attorney general Chris Carr has publicly denounced the board’s actions, and the staff of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has threatened to go to court to overturn an earlier board ruling making it vastly easier for counties to question individual ballots and slow down vote counting.
All of this intra-GOP conflict will bring back bad memories of Trump’s failed effort to purge Kemp and Raffensperger in 2022 primaries. Some of the MAGA folk beavering away at undermining Election Night plans in Georgia are veterans of the purge effort.
The odds are high that the courts will overturn some of this skulduggery at the behest of Carr, Raffensperger, Kemp, local election boards, or voting-rights advocates. But even if Georgia manages to hold a semi-normal election, the current state board and the many local election boards controlled by Trump fans could produce ongoing confusion and delays as voters vote and votes are counted. It’s also unclear how far Republicans like Kemp and Raffensperger will again go in frustrating the ambitions of the would-be 47th president in an even more polarized environment than existed in 2020. Georgia was just one of several states narrowly won by Biden four years ago. It could be the ball game this time around.
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