The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a Republican-led effort to require poll workers to hand-count ballots cast on Election Day, upholding a lower court’s decision that blocked the mandate. The ruling came after the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Georgia GOP appealed to reinstate a state election board rule mandating manual ballot counting in all precincts.
The state’s highest court denied the RNC’s emergency requests for a quick review, choosing instead to follow the normal legal process, ensuring that the hand-counting requirement will not be in place for the November election.
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“The Petitioners’ Motion for Emergency Supersedeas is DENIED,” the court document stated, along with the denial of an expedited appeal.
The decision is a victory for election officials who argued that the rule would cause widespread confusion and delays in reporting results. The state election board, with a Republican majority, introduced the hand-count requirement in September, passing the rule in a 3-2 vote despite opposition from local election officials. The rule would have required poll workers to manually count ballots and compare them with machine tallies before sending them to centralized facilities for final counting.
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Proponents of the rule claimed it would improve election security and public confidence in the results by identifying discrepancies early. However, critics raised concerns about the potential for human error and increased burdens on already overworked poll workers.
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