Brad Raffensperger calls Georgia Election Rule Changes misguided, criticizes state board

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger lashed out Thursday to proposed changes to election rules that are currently under consideration by the State Election Board.

Raffensperger particularly rejected a proposal to count ballots by hand at polling places on election night.

At a meeting in July, the State Election Board advanced a proposal requiring three separate poll workers to count ballots at voting precincts on election night to ensure the counts match those recorded by voting machines.

This proposal is currently open for public comment, and the board is scheduled to vote on it Monday.

Raffensperger, Georgia’s top elections official, criticized this effort as “misguided,” arguing that it would delay the reporting of election results and add risks to chain of custody procedures.

“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 from activists aligned with former President Donald Trump, who has continued to claim without evidence that widespread voter fraud cost him victory in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election, The Associated Press reported.

Trump and his supporters have repeatedly criticized Raffensperger for defending the integrity of that election.

Three of the board’s five members are Republican partisans whom Trump praised by name during a recent rally in Atlanta.

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Sharlene Alexander, a member of the Fayette County Board of Elections and Voter Registration, submitted the proposal to have three poll workers hand-count ballots by sorting them into stacks of 50 until all have been counted and the totals match the records from the voting systems.

If discrepancies arise, the poll manager must identify and correct the inconsistencies if possible.

Alexander did not respond Thursday to a voicemail, text message, or email seeking her comments on Raffensperger’s opposition.

In her proposal, Alexander described hand-counting ballots as a “long-standing tradition” in Fayette County and other areas, which ended when Blake Evans, director of elections for the secretary of state’s office, advised against it in an October 2022 email. Evans stated that prolonging the process of removing and sealing ballots could compromise ballot security.

Evans cited sections of Georgia law and State Election Board rules, emphasizing that “poll workers should not prolong the process of removing ballots from ballot boxes and sealing them in transport containers” to ensure maximum security.

Raffensperger’s news release described the State Election Board members as “unelected bureaucrats who have never run an election” and accused them of rejecting advice from experienced election officials.

The 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.

Spokespersons for Gov. Brian Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and state House Speaker Jon Burns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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