US Judge Blocks Georgia Hand Count Order, Preventing Potential Election Chaos

INTERNATIONAL NEWS: US Judge Blocks Georgia Hand Count Order, Preventing Potential Election Chaos

A US judge in Georgia has blocked an order mandating the hand-counting of ballots for the upcoming presidential election in November, citing concerns over administrative chaos and inadequate poll worker training.

Judge Robert McBurney ruled that the last-minute change would have overwhelmed poll workers, as they would not have been sufficiently trained to handle millions of ballots by hand. He also noted that implementing such a change at the “11th-and-one-half-hour” would undermine public trust in the electoral process.

The hand-counting rule was introduced by the Georgia election board, which is dominated by pro-Trump members, as part of an effort to alter the state’s election procedures. The rule would have required poll workers in Georgia’s more than 6,500 precincts to manually count ballots that had already been scanned by machines, adding an unnecessary layer of complexity to the process. Critics argued that this move was designed to delay or even block the certification of election results, creating doubts about the legitimacy of the election.

Judge McBurney’s ruling was met with relief by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, whose campaign described the hand-counting mandate as an attempt to cast doubt on the integrity of the voting process. Early voting began in Georgia on Tuesday, with a record-breaking 328,000 voters casting their ballots on the first day, either in person or by mail—more than double the number from the 2020 election.

Georgia is once again a crucial swing state, having played a pivotal role in the 2020 election when President Joe Biden won the state by a slim margin of just under 12,000 votes. Former President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged, is currently facing charges related to efforts to overturn the results of that election. A phone call recording revealed him pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the number he needed to win the state.

On the same day as the ruling, Trump held a rally in Atlanta, where he urged supporters to secure a victory that would be “too big to rig.” Meanwhile, Kamala Harris focused her outreach efforts on Black voters, emphasizing the importance of participation in the political process. Speaking on a radio show, she encouraged voters to stay engaged, stating, “The things that we want, and are prepared to fight for, won’t happen if we’re not active and if we don’t participate.”

This ruling comes amid several election-related cases in Georgia, one of seven key swing states expected to play a decisive role in the 2024 election.

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