ATLANTA — The Democratic Party filed a lawsuit Monday to block the implementation of an election rule in Georgia requiring hand-counting ballots in certain situations. The legal challenge argues the new rule is impractical, error-prone, and likely to cause delays in reporting election results.
Challenging the hand-counting rule, the lawsuit also involves the Georgia State Election Board and Georgia State Secretary of Brad Raffensperger According to the lawsuit, hand-counting violates both the federal and state laws. Democrats say that this would affect the efficiency and speed of the election process in the state, they will be excluded from voting because there might be mistakes in the counting and the results authentication processes.
This law enacted during the bi-partisan legislative session this year by the Republican-dominated Arizona state legislature mandates a full hand count of all ballots in whichever case the machine totals were lesser than the totals obtained from hand counting. According to proponents, the new rule will assist in rebuilding voter confidence following accusations of fraud in the voting outcomes of the 2020 presidential election-voting outcomes certified through several audits as accurate.
The state Democrats countered the measure as a politically driven move in a futile attempt to appease election deniers and add unnecessary complication to the vote count process. They claim that the existing election infrastructure in the state, already proven to be reliable, ensures safe elections as it has paper backups of all the votes made.
There are more significant disadvantages in performing hand counting than machine tabulation, according to Nikema Williams, the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia. She wanted to know why this rule would lead to confusion in future elections and delay results in sensitive classifications.”
His predecessor, Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, the Republican who has been most vociferous in fighting back efforts to undercut confidence in the integrity of Georgia’s elections, is notably absent from the lawsuit. Still, Republican legislators argue the new rule is simply a reasonable protection measure.
The legal battle came as Georgia remained a pivotal battleground state, with the national focus on its upcoming elections. As the lawsuit unfolds, most closely watched were the election officials and voting rights advocates who are keenly interested in the potential impact it will have on voter confidence and the operations of elections in the state.
The decision by the court will also define future elections in Georgia. There is a likelihood that it may further influence other states to either make similar changes or deny any changes in an election rule.
