In Leesburg, in rural southwest Georgia, a dozen poll workers sat at tables thumbing through stacks of blank paper, getting used to counting ballots by hand.
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A few weeks before the US presidential election on November 5, the State Election Commission in September adopted a controversial provision requiring each county to recount the ballots by hand, in addition to the counting already carried out by the machines.
Veronica Johnson, who is responsible for organizing elections for Lee County, believes that hand counting should not pose too many problems, especially in her small territory. But the problem is not just logistical.
Georgia is one of seven key states that could decide the fate of the election. And the new instructions were adopted by a commission favorable to ex-president and Republican candidate Donald Trump, causing concern from the opposing camp.
Election officials, both Republicans and Democrats, say this manual count is not only unnecessary, but could also sow confusion by slowing down the process while being more likely to result in errors.
AFP
“It is very likely that in these circumstances there are going to be disparities” between the two types of counting and that they “will be used by the loser of the election to try to claim that there is something abnormal,” expert David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, recently told CBS.
This modification is all the more notable since Donald Trump was charged last year with illicit attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, after calling a senior local official to ask him to “find” the approximately 12 000 ballots in his name that he needed to win the state.
“Misguided” regulation
The first Republican to lose Georgia since 1992, he was never able to produce proof of the electoral fraud he claimed, despite recounts and legal actions.
Lee is one of Georgia’s 159 counties and, like many rural counties in the state, voted heavily – 72% – for the Republican candidate in 2020.
Due to appeals against the Commission’s decision, Veronica Johnson is not convinced that hand counting will actually take place in the presidential election, which pits Donald Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris. “I don’t think it’s necessary,” she argues.
AFP
“Honestly, every election official I know just wants to serve the people and not be entangled in political ramifications,” she observes, noting that ballots are already counted and triple-checked by machines.
Deeming the new regulations “ill-advised”, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, considers that “activists who seek to impose last-minute changes in electoral procedures” are only “shaking the confidence of voters” .
Democrats took legal action to try to block its implementation.
“Everything in doubt”
This measure was adopted by three votes to two within the Electoral Commission. The three votes in favor come from fervent supporters of Donald Trump who, during an August rally in Atlanta, praised them as “pit bulls» fighting to achieve “victory”.
The Commission, with a vote along the same partisan line, also approved a rule granting polling station officials the opportunity to conduct a “reasonable investigation” before certifying the results.
This measure was criticized for the imprecise nature of the term “reasonable” and, again, the matter was taken to court.
The problem “is knowing what happens if a body chooses not to certify” the electoral results, notes Mitchell Brown, director of the elections supervision program for Auburn University in Alabama.
Donna Mathis, who has lived in Lee County for nearly 30 years and served as poll worker since 2018, laments that the “country is so divided.”
With this change in the rule, she emphasizes, “people are now losing so much confidence that they are questioning everything.”
