Republican majority approves requirement for poll managers to hand-count ballots before tabulating votes

Forty-six days before the election, Georgia’s state election board approved a new rule for poll managers, requiring a hand count of paper ballots on election day before tabulating votes.

The majority on the board approved the rule that would require three people in every precinct to check machine-vote tallies by hand-counting the election results. Voting experts have long warned that hand-counts are time-consuming, costly and less reliable than machines. It is a process that nonetheless has been favored by conservative activists who doubt the results of the 2020 election.