The key battleground state of Georgia’s election board voted Friday to force ballots to be hand-counted three times before a result is declared.

As one of multiple motions on changing how elections are run, less than 50 days out from the November 5 election, the new rule was passed 3-2 by the conservative-leaning panel.

The changes come after Donald Trump heavily criticized the way the state handled the 2020 election results, repeatedly and falsely claiming he won the state.

President Joe Biden narrowly won in Georgia, with 49.5 percent of the vote against Trump’s 49.2 percent.

Critics have claimed the board, which has swung more to the right, is trying to rewrite the rules to favor former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump.

In a letter Thursday, the office of Georgia’s Attorney General issued a warning that the board was pushing rules that “very likely exceed the board’s statutory authority”, while voting rights groups had also raised concerns.


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  • @Balthazar@lemmy.world
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    2810 hours ago

    Is this an admission of defeat by the red team? Aren’t they effectively saying that they don’t want their state’s results to be certified, and throw away their electoral votes because the blue team might win?

    Or is it deeper, resulting in the more-populated blue team areas to not make certification, and therefore the state goes red?

    • @tburkhol@lemmy.world
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      76 hours ago

      They only need to throw one or two counties - Fulton or Dekalb - into chaos, and they’ve got the groundwork laid. After 2020, the legislature voted themselves the power to take over county boards of elections and immediately started investigations to show that Fulton’s board were incompetent. The state board now lets and random county official contest certification, more or less guaranteeing chaos and calls for the legislature to take over. Throw out Fulton County, and Georgia goes back to solid red.

    • @Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      97 hours ago

      They’re angling for Congress to install Trump if no one reaches 270. The fallback method of selecting a president when there’s no clear winner is a House vote where each state gets 1 vote, so since there are more red states than blue states that’s effectively a sure-thing win for Republicans rather than leaving it to chance with the voters. Even if they’re 75% sure Trump wins Georgia, 100% is still better.

    • @empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      219 hours ago

      Anything. Everything. The more dysfunctional they can force ethe system to be, the more opportunities they have to claim ita fraudulent and throw out the undesirable results.

    • @fine_sandy_bottom
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      57 hours ago

      That sounds kinda plausible.

      Counting in regional areas will be concluded before counting in city polling places.

    • @grue@lemmy.world
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      179 hours ago

      Is this an admission of defeat by the red team? Aren’t they effectively saying that they don’t want their state’s results to be certified, and throw away their electoral votes because the blue team might win?

      Yes, they’re effectively saying that they don’t want their state’s results to be counted. No, it’s not an admission of defeat. Instead, it’s manufacturing justification for another coup.

          • nickwitha_k (he/him)
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            46 hours ago

            Yup. They’ve been a minority party for a long time and their staunchest supporters are more dying of old age and preventable disease.

            • Yeah at this point they literally cannot win a fair national election. They have to put their thumb on the scale to even have a chance at winning. Every cycle that becomes harder and harder to pull off. The only longterm survival plan the GOP has is “authoritarian state”.