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Georgia Judge Blocks Hand-Count Ballot Rule

hank
edited October 15 in Off-Topic
”A judge on Tuesday blocked a controversial new Georgia election rule that would have required poll workers to hand count ballots, handing another setback to allies of former President Donald Trump.The rule, passed by the Republican-majority state election board last month, would have required workers to count by hand the total number of ballots at the polling site after machine tallies, likely adding a lengthy delay before releasing results on Election Day.

“Democrats challenged the rule in state court. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney foreshadowed his ruling during a court hearing earlier in the day, saying the hand-count rule appeared to be already causing confusion."Why wouldn't we just pause, especially on the hand-count rule, given what looks like a fairly robust record of chaos that it is sowing?" McBurney asked lawyers in his courtroom. McBurney said the rule was passed too close to the election. He has paused the hand-count rule indefinitely while the case continues.”

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal - October 15, 2024
Article By Mariah Timms and Jan Wolfe


I’ll trust the computers to do the count over a bunch of overworked stressed-out human poll workers who are likely being harassed around the clock by a mob of militaristic minded rodents.

Comments

  • CrashCrash
    +1.
  • MarkMark
    +1.

    How does hand counting even work?

    Just reading through this illustrates several steps in the process where the vote/vote count / running tallies can become distorted. Sounds to me like if you're for looking to have the result screwed up you'd want ballots counted by hand.
  • Sven
    edited October 16
    Thanks @Mark, it is very helpful to see the tedious process to hand count the votes.

    Don’t forget the counting starts after the voting places close. It is ridiculous to count ballots by hand and there is where mistakes can easily made.

    The GOP dominated election board impose this change at the last minutes. Don’t forget there was no credible evidence of counter errors using machines. Fox News settled Dominion lawsuit before the trial. Newsmax settled with Smartmatic before trial.
    https://npr.org/2024/09/26/nx-s1-5130183/newsmax-smartmatic-settlement-defamation-election-lawsuit
  • CrashCrash
    Glad the Judge decided as he did. It's all about Repugnant distraction and prevarication.
  • MarkMark
    True that @Crash. The last thing I want is having the courts decide who wins.

    ISTM and correct me if I'm wrong, that the last time vote counts were an issue pre-45 was the hanging chad biz in FL. Since he lost in 2020 suddenly all counts are suspect and it's difficult to convince half the population that they are not even though they know they are not. Don't know how you do that.
  • CrashCrash
    ...Don't know how you do that.
    Willful blindness. Eh?
  • MarkMark
    edited October 17
    True there. Hell the country can't even agree on reality. That doesn't bode well for vote counting.
  • BenWPBenWP
    I was quite relieved to read of the Georgia judge’s decision, but still worried because he kicked the can by limiting the ruling to this year only. There will be an appeal from the deep-pocketed R’s and the issue is unlikely to go away. In a somewhat similar case, R’s have attempted to prevent election officials from counting absentee votes prior to Election Day. Officials want to count early in order to speed up the Election Day tallies and to make efficient use of the time of those counting. Why anyone would challenge such a reasonable practice, given the big increase in early voting in recent years, escapes my addled brain. If it’s not delay, delay, delay, it’s making outlandish claims about the honesty of public servants. Anything to get us to start pointing fingers at innocent officials. At what temperature does blood boil??
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    edited October 17
    This whole thing is so damned one-sided. How often do we hear of the Democratic side trying to do anything similar?
  • CrashCrash
    edited October 19
    Repugnant "Party" obstructionism. Plain and Simple. Not a Party any longer. It's a subversive organization.
  • MarkMark
    Makes me wonder sometimes if old-school republicans will ever try to take their party back.
  • Old_JoeOld_Joe
    @Mark- that's likely to be a real challenge. I wouldn't be surprised to see some version of an alternate party come out of all this.
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