What a GA judge’s ruling about hand counting ballots means for Muscogee election lawsuit
Tuesday’s decision by an Atlanta judge to pause a controversial new rule for Georgia elections prompted this question in Columbus:
How does the ruling affect a similar lawsuit the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registration filed last week against the Georgia Elections Board?
Judge Robert McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court blocked enforcement of the hand-count rule while he considers the merits of the case.
Last month, the state board passed the rule mandating that poll workers at each precinct count by hand the paper ballots to determine the total number of ballots cast and see whether that figure matches the total number of ballots tabulated by the electronic scanner. The official vote tally for each candidate comes from the scanner, not the hand count.
Proponents of this new rule say it would add an extra level of verification to ensure all ballots are counted. Opponents, including the Muscogee board in its lawsuit, say it would make the election less secure by introducing human error into the process and disrupting the chain of custody of the ballots.
After early voting for the Nov. 5 election started Tuesday in Georgia, McBurney wrote in his order that the hand-count rule is “too much, too late” for county election officials and poll workers to implement now.
“Yesterday’s ruling was an important win for election administrators across the state who are very busy running this election already,” James Clark, one of the lawyers representing the Muscogee elections board, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Wednesday. “The court in its decision acknowledged the burdens and problems with the rule, as Muscogee has pointed out for some time.”
Clark is an attorney with the Columbus law firm Page Scrantom Sprouse Tucker & Ford.
The Muscogee board’s lawsuit contends implementing the new rule would require extra expense, a diversion of resources and additional planning. It also insists the board can’t comply with the new rule and all of Georgia election law.
Complying with the hand-counting rule contradicts a state law which mandates that, after completing the required accounting and related documentation for a precinct, “the poll manager and at least one assistant manager shall … immediately deliver all required documentation and election materials to the election superintendent,” the lawsuit says.
But the hand-counting rule would delay election results, the lawsuit says, “which increases voter distrust in the results. Hand-counting also introduces more possibilities for human error, which creates misinformation about the certainty of the election results.”
What’s next in Muscogee County’s case?
Although no hearing has been scheduled for the Muscogee board’s lawsuit, Clark and Muscogee elections director Nancy Boren don’t think the Atlanta judge’s order will stop litigation about the hand-count rule in Georgia.
“It is an important step in the right direction,” Boren told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Wednesday. “However, we don’t expect the ruling to be the end of the court cases on hand-count. Muscogee County will continue to be a part of the efforts to ensure the rule is not in place this November.”
A record number of Georgia residents, more than 328,000, cast ballots on the first day of early voting Tuesday, according to a post on X, formerly Twitter, by Georgia Secretary of State chief operating officer Gabriel Sterling. That includes nearly 6,000 in Columbus, Boren said.
This story was originally published October 16, 2024 at 2:29 PM.
