In Georgia, a New Showdown Is Brewing Over Election Rules

In Georgia, a New Showdown Is Brewing Over Election Rules

The state election board was recently taken over by a conservative majority. Its latest proposals are dangerously late in the process and most likely illegal, according to the secretary of state.

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By Nick Corasaniti

A showdown is brewing between the top election official in Georgia and the State Election Board over more than a dozen new rules and procedures scheduled to be voted on by the board at a meeting on Friday.

A lawyer for the election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, sent a scathing letter to the State Election Board on Monday, criticizing “the absurdity of the board’s actions” while warning that new rules under consideration are dangerously late in the election process and most likely illegal.

The fight comes as the election board is under increasing pressure from critics already concerned that it has been rewriting the rules of the game in a key swing state to favor former President Donald J. Trump, including potentially disrupting certification of the election if Mr. Trump loses in November. Last month, the board granted local officials new power over the election certification process, a change that opponents say could sow chaos.

The two-page letter from Charlene S. McGowan, the general counsel for Mr. Raffensperger, sets up a choice for the election board before its meeting on Friday: Heed the guidance of the top election official in the state, or ignore the legal advice and pass another package of election rules that include right-wing policy goals such as hand counting of ballots.

“It is far too late in the election process for counties to implement new rules and procedures, and many poll workers have already completed their required training,” Ms. McGowan wrote in the letter, which she said was a response to a request for comment on the proposed rules from the chairman of the board. “If the board believes that rules changes are important for an election, the process should begin much sooner to allow for smooth implementation and training and include the input of election officials.”

A spokesman for the State Election Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times, comes amid a contentious relationship between state and county election officials with the board, which recently was taken over by a 3-2 conservative majority.

Pressure on the board from election officials continues to grow. The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, a nonpartisan collective of local election officials, released a similarly harsh critique of the State Election Board and the proposed new rules.

“We do not oppose rules because we are lazy or because a political operative or organization wants us to,” the letter said. “We oppose rules because they are poorly written, inefficient, would not accomplish their stated goals, or go directly against state law.”

Multiple county election boards across Georgia, including those in Cobb and Athens-Clarke Counties, adopted resolutions denouncing the state board for introducing rules so close to the election and calling on the board to halt implementation of any new rules within 90 days of the election.

Democrats have sued the board for rules passed at a previous meeting, and a list of prominent Republican lawyers and law enforcement officers sent Gov. Brian Kemp a letter urging him to investigate and remove members of the State Election Board.

In Ms. McGowan’s letter, she laid out a clear list of deadlines in Georgia election code to detail how new rules risk complicating the process. Counties begin mailing absentee ballots to voters on Oct. 7, and early in-person voting starts on Oct. 15. The earliest that new rules from the State Election Board could take effect would be Oct. 14. Ms. McGowan noted that Oct. 14 “is 22 days before the general election when Georgia voters will already be voting.”

She also said that the board lacked the legal authority to implement many of its proposed rules, including changing the form of ballots and the state voter registration database.

She was especially critical of two proposals to add hand counting of ballots in both early voting and on Election Day. She warned that those measures would add burdensome costs and labor at a very late stage in the election process and said they could invite error or fraud and harm the sanctity of the November election.

“These new procedures would disrupt existing chain of custody protocols under the law and needlessly introduce the risk of error, lost ballots, or fraud,” Ms. McGowan said. She added that workers were “prohibited from tabulating ballots before the close of the polls on Election Day, which would be compromised by the viewing and counting of ballots during advance voting.”

Ms. McGowan advised against other rules simply because there is so little time before the election, invoking an informal judicial doctrine, known as the Purcell principle, that urges judges not to change rules close to an election and citing Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court.

“The board should heed the words of Justice Kavanaugh,” she wrote, “and pause any further rule-making to ensure that the rules are ‘clear and settled’ and avoid ‘unfair consequences’ in the 2024 general election.”