Georgia Secretary of State criticizes Election Board's 'new activist rulemaking'

ATLANTA – Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, on Thursday expressed opposition to proposed changes to election procedures currently under consideration by the State Election Board, particularly rejecting a suggestion to count ballots by hand at polling places on election night. 

The State Election Board advanced a proposal in July that would require three separate poll workers to count ballots at voting precincts on election night to ensure that they match the number of ballots recorded by voting machines. This proposal is now open for public comment, and the board is set to vote on Monday regarding its adoption. 

Raffensperger, the state’s top elections official, criticized the effort as “misguided,” arguing that it would delay the reporting of election results and introduce risks to the chain of custody for ballots. 

“Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers,” Raffensperger said in a news release. 

In recent months, the State Election Board has received numerous rule proposals, many originating from activists aligned with former President Donald Trump. Trump has continued to assert, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud led to his loss in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. Raffensperger has been a consistent defender of the integrity of that election, a stance that has drawn the ire of Trump and his supporters. Three of the five members of the State Election Board are Republican partisans whom Trump praised by name during a campaign rally last month in Atlanta. 

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Sharlene Alexander, a member of the Fayette County Board of Elections and Voter Registration, submitted the proposal for three poll workers to hand count ballots, with the workers sorting them into stacks of 50 ballots until all have been counted and the three workers have arrived at the same total. If the total does not match the numbers recorded on the voter check-in system, the electronic voting machines, and the scanner recap forms, the poll manager is to determine the reason for the discrepancy and, if possible, correct it. 

Alexander argued in her proposal that hand counting ballots was a “long-standing tradition” in Fayette County and other areas, a practice that ceased after Blake Evans, the director of elections for the secretary of state’s office, sent an email to county election officials in October 2022 advising against it. 

“I know that many counties have received an email requesting that poll workers hand count ballots at polling places on election night. Deciding to have poll workers hand count ballots at each polling location on election night is not something your poll workers should do,” Evans wrote in the email, which Alexander attached to her proposal. 

Evans cited sections of Georgia law and State Election Board rules regarding the handling of ballots at polling places on election night. He emphasized that “to ensure maximum security for the voted ballots, poll workers should not prolong the process of removing ballots from ballot boxes and sealing them in transport containers.” 

In the news release issued Thursday, Raffensperger referred to the State Election Board members as “unelected bureaucrats who have never run an election” and stated that they “seem to reject the advice” of individuals with election experience. 

The State Election Board comprises five members: one appointed by the state House, one chosen by the state Senate, one each from the Republican and Democratic parties, and a nonpartisan chair selected by the General Assembly or by the governor if the General Assembly is not in session when there is a vacancy. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report