A judge stopped a planned hand count of ballots on election night in Georgia, ruling Tuesday that it would create “administrative chaos” if poll workers were required to conduct the manual review without being trained.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney put the State Election Board’s hand-count requirement on hold primarily because it was approved so close to Election Day. Poll workers would have counted the number of ballots but not votes.
Without the hand count, voters can expect results to come in faster on election night than if they had to wait for poll workers to manually count ballots.
“The public interest is not disserved by pressing pause here. This election season is fraught; memories of Jan. 6 have not faded away, regardless of one’s view of that date’s fame or infamy,” McBurney wrote in his decision. “Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public.”
The decision followed a six-hour hearing in a lawsuit filed by Cobb County’s election board, which argued that the Republican-controlled State Election Board’s hand-count requirement was unreasonable….
You can read the court’s order at this link.