Yesterday Georgia’s State Elections Board (SEB), on a 3-2 vote, standardized statewide procedures that ensure one person-one vote on tallies, and guards against certification of inaccurate or error-ridden results. Three conservative SEB panelists, who overcame opposition from the panel’s lone Democrat and its chairman, say the rule ensures that all counties comply with existing requirements in GA Code § 21-2-493(b). That law mandates reconciliation of number of voters to number of ballots to number of votes prior to certification of election results.
Attorney Cleta Mitchell, founder of Election Integrity Network, said the rule will ensure that election officials catch errors in the tallies so Georgia doesn’t have a repeat of more than 3,000 duplicate ballots that were scanned, counted, and certified in Fulton County in the 2020 election recount — only to learn after the fact that more than 17,000 votes included in the tally have no ballot images that correlate to the number of votes certified.
“The rule is built on basic, kindergarten math,” Mitchell said. “Count the number of voters, confirm that the number of voters match the number of ballots. Those numbers should match and should be the same as the number of votes tabulated. The duty for election officials to certify correct results is required under the statute. The rule just makes sure it happens in every county.”
“If election officials want the American people to become election believers again, these are the important procedures that must be made part of the election process in Georgia and every other state,” Mitchell concluded.
In other action yesterday the SEB, on a 4-0 vote, opposed implementation of paper ballot usage in all 159 counties to replace the controversial Dominion ballot marking device voting system. Republicans were divided on this issue, with some activists hoping for the change, while GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr opted for the status quo.
