Oconee County prepares for Georgia’s new hand-counting rule amid election concerns
In a statement before a Sept. 23 meeting, Georgia state election board member Dr. Janice Johnston addressed what she called a “widespread panic” in Georgia about a new rule the board passed.
The board voted 3-2 Sept. 20 to implement a rule requiring the number of in-person election day ballots be counted by hand in Georgia.
“Let me reassure every Democrat and member of any other party and the citizens of Georgia that these rules will help to prevent a last minute surprise of questioning the results about the count, or audit, or recount,” Johnson said in the announcement.
State officials and elections experts have criticized the timing of the change, which comes just 46 days ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
“Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in an Aug. 15 press release.
Others have alleged a political motivation behind the decision.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said he believes the three-member Republican majority of the board is suspicious of the “fairness and completeness” of the elections process.
“I suspect their motivation is a belief that it would catch some kinds of skullduggery taking place,” Bullock said. “If they count up the number of ballots there at the polling place, if that doesn’t jive with the number of people who have signed in, there’d be an ‘Aha’ moment where they say, ‘look, clearly, something has happened here.’”
But Bullock said there is a higher chance for error in hand-counting than there is for the ballot tabulation machines.
“Machines don’t get distracted,” he said. “Machines don’t stop at some point to go to the bathroom or get a Coke or something and come back and say, ‘Well, gee, where was I in this?’”
How does this affect Oconee?
Oconee County board of elections & registration director Sharon Gregg said she had already started training poll workers on the hand-counting process just in case the rule passed.
She said she doesn’t think the change will cause any logistical issues at Oconee polling locations.
“Right now, I think our polling places have extra staff, but we’re working on talking with the poll managers to see if they think that they’ll need extra ones,” Gregg said. “They have prepared extra staff just for this election anyway, so I think they’re prepared for it.”
The new rule only requires hand-counting of election day ballots. In the 2022 General Election, only 28% of all votes in Oconee County were cast on election day.
Gregg said she expects the hand-counting to take at least an hour for each precinct.
“I do believe this will cause the results to come in later. Also, the staff is going to have to stay later, so it will cost more,” Gregg said. “We'll have to pay the poll workers for their time that it's going to take to stay and count those ballots.”
Bullock said hand-counting is likely to be a bigger problem for larger counties in areas like metro Atlanta than in smaller counties like Oconee.
“Oconee county doesn't have large numbers of votes being cast, so it won't slow it down a whole lot,” he said “But it will slow down a bit, rather than simply transmitting electronically the results of the scanners.”
Other Preparations
Gregg said the elections office will be studying the new rules ahead of the election, as well as continuing the rest of its preparations.
“Our duty is to make sure, as election officials, that every eligible Oconee County Citizen is able to vote,” she said. “I stand by that, and that is what I'm here for and what I'm going to do.”
Oconee county elections staff continue to conduct logic and accuracy testing on voting equipment, which must be completed by Nov. 1. Gregg said the elections office is also finishing its poll worker training and preparing supplies for the eight voting precincts.
