Trump-backed Georgia election board OKs additional certification requirements

ATLANTA (CN) — The Georgia State Election Board voted Monday to approve a controversial new rule that supporters say is necessary to ensure votes are properly counted but that critics argue could cause chaos in the certification of election results.

The rule requires county election officials to generate lists of voters who cast ballots in an election, categorized by voting method, and to examine them for duplicates.

Under the rule, each county election board would meet by 3 p.m. on the Friday after Election Day to compile vote totals by precinct and ballot type. However, provisional ballots, absentee ballots that need voter verification and ballots from overseas and military voters can still be received and counted until the end of the day that Friday.

It also allows county election boards to examine all election-related documents and only certify elections after discrepancies are investigated and resolved. Final vote totals must be certified by county election boards one week after Election Day — Nov. 12 for this year’s presidential election.

The three members of the board who voted to approve the rule were called out by name by former President Trump during a campaign rally in Atlanta this month as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”

Janelle King, Rick Jeffares and Janice Johnston comprise the board’s majority and have come under scrutiny after they set up a secret meeting in July to discuss election rule changes without public notice or input from the board’s chair in violation of Georgia law.

“These are all very important things that we want our boards to review and expect them to review before they certify an election,” Johnston said during Monday’s meeting that took place on the first day of absentee voting in the state.

The nonpartisan board chair and the one Democrat on the panel voted against it.

State Election Board chairman John Fervier said he’s worried that county election board members could use it as a justification to vote against certifying elections, echoing similar concerns from other critics of the board proposing rule changes less than three months before the presidential election.

“We’re already conducting the election for all intents and purposes. It is too late to be making changes like this. If these were good ideas, they should’ve been proposed six months ago,” Sarah Ghazal, the lone Democrat on the State Election Board said during the meeting.

Some election integrity organizations have concerns over the impartiality and motivations of the Trump-aligned county election board members, arguing they could use new rules to try to halt the certification of the 2024 election if they don’t like the result.

“Trump and his MAGA allies have taken over the Georgia State Election Board to try and give a veneer of legality to their illegal scheme to disrupt the certification of Georgia’s 2024 election results," Lauren Groh-Wargo, the CEO of Fair Fight Action, a Georgia based nonprofit that fights against voter suppression, said in a statement Monday.

“Many of Trump’s key election denier allies and Republican Party operatives are behind these illegal, anti-freedom changes to Georgia election rules, and it’s all with the goal of helping Trump win the Peach State, even if he doesn’t earn a majority of Georgians’ votes. We’ll have to turnout to vote in massive numbers to ensure their expected claims of fraud ring hollow,” she added.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has also strongly criticized the last-minute rule changes, warning that they could undermine confidence in the election system and burden election workers.

In recent months, the State Election Board has contemplated numerous rule proposals, many originating from activists aligned with Trump, who continues to assert without evidence that widespread voter fraud led to his loss in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. Raffensperger has consistently defended the integrity of that election and its results, a stance that has drawn ire from Trump and his supporters.

But during the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting, many people said they support rule changes to ensure voter accuracy, not because of Trump.

“There’s no conspiracy here, just trying to get an accurate count of the votes. That’s something everyone should support,” Erik Christensen told the board during the virtual meeting that drew more than 850 viewers.

The new rule comes less than two weeks after the board voted to allow county election board members to conduct “reasonable inquiry” into allegations of voting irregularities. That rule did not set deadlines for how long such inquiries might last or describe what they might entail.

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