Conservative activists in Georgia have worked with prominent election deniers to pass a series of significant changes to the procedures for counting ballots in recent weeks, raising alarm about the potential for confusion and interference in the election certification process in a key swing state this fall.
Since the beginning of August, the five-member state election board has adopted rules that allow local election boards to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before they are certified, and to allow any local election board member “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections prior to certification of results”. The same rule also requires local boards to reconcile any discrepancies between the total number of ballots cast and the number of voters who check in. If it can’t reconcile the numbers, the board is authorized to come up with a way to figure out which votes count and which do not.
At its upcoming meeting in September, the board is also expected to approve a measure that would require local officials to hand-count ballots to check the machine tabulations. Experts have warned that hand-counts are unreliable, costly and time-consuming.
But at the same time, observers are concerned new changes are seeding the ground to give local county commissioners justifications to object to the certification of the vote.
Canada has always used paper, hand-counted ballots. Why anyone would trust their elections to machines which can be sabotaged is beyond me. Perhaps use them to check human-counted results, not the other way 'round.
Takes too long? Recruit more volunteers. Or, heaven forbid, pay them. Something this important deserves the resources to do it transparently and accurately.
This ends with Florida’s results delayed because the hand count was interrupted by immigration enforcement, as only illegal workers would work for the pay offered…