Georgia county election boards could become 2024 battleground
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A steady stream of bureaucratic rule changes in Georgia is creating a framework that election deniers could use to delay the certification of the presidential election results come November, advocates say.
Why it matters: Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris know the road to the White House runs through Georgia, and the new rules could help cast doubt and fan flames of suspicion on the democratic process like it's 2020 all over again.
Driving the news: In recent months, MAGA and GOP activists have helped push the State Election Board's Republican appointees to approve what they market as common-sense measures — nuanced and subtle fixes to make elections more secure.
Yes, but: In reality, elections officials and progressive activists say, the changes are not warranted. And if implemented, they say, the measures will trip up populous counties like Fulton and DeKalb, which also happen to be Democratic strongholds.
- "Elections are meant to be slow and deliberate processes with a whole lot of redundancies and checkpoints," Cathy Woolard, the former chair of the Fulton Board of Registration and Elections, told Axios. "You can't just drop in new processes and think that they logically work."
New elections measures that were recently approved or are under consideration include:
Vote counts: On Aug. 19, the board approved a new rule that requires county boards to investigate and explain any inconsistency between the number of ballots cast and the number of people who voted before certifying the election.
- Election deniers secretly pushed for the measure, ProPublica first reported.
"Reasonable inquiries": County boards must now conduct a "reasonable inquiry" and can request election-related documents before certifying elections if they suspect vote totals are inaccurate.
Hand-counting ballots: The board next month will consider another rule to require three polling precinct workers at each voting location to match a hand-count of ballots to the machine's vote count, WABE reports.
- Under another rule, election boards would have to begin compiling vote totals and precinct results before provisional ballots and military and overseas votes are due.
What they're saying: "[Assuming positive intent] would be defining a problem very clearly, listening to the people who do the job to come up with a solution, and then being very careful about the solutions that are implemented," said Woolard, who has filed an ethics complaint against the 3-member majority bloc.
- "That is not what's happening. This is pure bullying force to implement changes that no one has asked for except perhaps Donald Trump and the Republican Party."
The latest: Top Republicans, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, have criticized the board's rule-making and call to reopen an investigation into Fulton's handling of the 2020 election.
What's next: Despite calls for a time-out from a coalition of Georgia elections directors, voter registration workers, and Democrats, the board members plan to consider additional measures at the Sept. 20 meeting.