ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has blocked a new rule that requires Georgia Election Day ballots to be counted by hand after the close of voting. The ruling came a day after the same judge ruled that county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law.
The State Election Board last month passed the rule requiring that three poll workers each count the paper ballots — not votes — by hand after the polls close. The county election board in Cobb County, in Atlanta’s suburbs, had filed a lawsuit seeking to have a judge declare that rule and five others recently passed by the state board invalid, saying they exceed the state board’s authority, weren’t adopted in compliance with the law and are unreasonable.
In a ruling late Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote, that the so-called hand count rule “is too much, too late” and blocked its enforcement while he considers the merits of the case.
McBurney on Monday had ruled in…