Judge pauses rule that would require Georgia counties to hand-count ballots

(CNN) — A judge in Georgia has paused a new rule from the Georgia State Election Board that would have required officials to hand-count the number of ballots cast at each polling place, criticizing state election officials for approving it so close to Election Day.

“No training has been administered (let alone developed), no protocols for handling write-in ballots … have been issued, and no allowances have been made in any county’s election budget for additional personnel and other expenses required to implement the Hand Count Rule,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his order Tuesday.

“The administrative chaos that will – not may – ensue is entirely inconsistent with the obligations of our boards of elections (and the SEB) to ensure that our elections are fair, legal, and orderly.”

The new hand-counting rule – which had been set to take effect October 22 – would require counties to count by hand the number of ballots cast at a polling place, to make sure it matches the number of ballots tallied by voting machines. The hand-counters, however, wouldn’t be tallying how many votes each candidate received, as that’s what the machines do.

Democrats cheered the ruling Tuesday evening. “From the beginning, this rule was an effort to delay election results to sow doubt in the outcome, and our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision to block it. We will continue fighting to ensure that voters can cast their ballot knowing it will count,” the Harris campaign, Democratic National Committee and Democratic Party of Georgia said in a joint statement.

The hand-count rule is the subject of litigation on multiple fronts and a separate hearing on the matter is set for Wednesday. Passed by the Donald Trump-backed Republican majority on the state election board, the rule would require officials at a polling place to match the number of ballots tallied by voting machines with a hand-count of the number of ballots cast.

The measure has drawn bipartisan criticism, in part because the board forged ahead with it so close to Election Day.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has noted the state took several steps to speed up the reporting of results in Georgia this year. He has said the hand-count rule could delay the reporting of results, foster an atmosphere for misinformation and present chain of custody issues for ballots.

The rule, McBurney wrote in his order, “is too much, too late.”

“This election season is fraught; memories of January 6 have not faded away, regardless of one’s view of that date’s fame or infamy. Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public,” the judge wrote, adding that while the rule appears on paper to be an extra human check on the accuracy of the election, its last-minute passage “does not contribute to lessening the tension or boosting the confidence of the public for this election.”

Janelle King, a Republican board member, criticized the ruling.

“I am deeply disappointed for the people of Georgia,” King said in a statement. “However, sometimes the victory lies in the public knowing that the State Election Board is paying close attention to our election process.”

McBurney is overseeing a number of high-profile cases related to Georgia’s election. The judge is considering a separate rule passed by the board in August that requires local election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying them – a mandate that Democrats say could give county election officials broad authority to delay or decline altogether their certification of the results “in a hunt for purported election irregularities.”

And on Monday, he ruled that local election officials have “a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results” in the days following the election – dealing a blow to an effort by conservatives in the critical battleground state to gain the legal right to reject results based on a suspicion of fraud or abuse.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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