Trump-approved Georgia election officials' new rules could spur 'doubt and suspicion'

In the final months before the 2024 presidential election, three Republicans on the Georgia State Election Board are making new election rules that elected officials and experts in both major parties warn could sow misinformation and chaos in November. Some critics even worry the rule changes could be used to alter election results outright − and the board may yet make even more changes before the election.

"They are a mess," Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told USA TODAY of the board's efforts to change vote certification requirements so close to Election Day.

One of the latest rules, which passed Aug. 19, requires county investigations of even minor discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters in a precinct before certifying the results. Critics worry that could cause delays or even failures to certify.

"Any effort to delay also is an opportunity to infuse doubt and suspicion and accusations, and we saw that happen in 2020," Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who served as Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth from Jan. 2019 to Feb. 2021, told USA TODAY.

The board passed that rule just four days after Raffensperger – who famously resisted Donald Trump's request to "find" nearly 12,000 votes to reverse Joe Biden's 2020 Georgia victory − issued a press release denouncing its ongoing activity so close to November. “Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers,” Raffensperger stated.

The board's actions prompted a Monday lawsuit by Democrats and Georgia county election officials , who want a court to make clear ahead of the election that state deadlines for certifying the results are mandatory, and the new rules don't change that fact.

The board is also set to consider a requirement next month for local officials to hand-count every ballot before certifying results.

The three members on the five-person board, Dr. Janice Johnston, Rick Jaffares, and Janelle King, became a majority voting bloc in May when King replaced another Republican board member who resisted some efforts to sow doubt about Joe Biden's 2020 victory in Georgia.

Since then, the trio has been praised by Republican presidential nominee Trump as "pit bulls" fighting for "victory," while passing a series of rules that change Georgia's vote-counting process in the final months before the November election, including a requirement passed on Aug. 6 for counties to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" before certifying results.

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Board member offended by 'baseless accusations'

The new rules don't license local election officials to push certification past Georgia's legal deadline – six days after Election Day. The Aug. 19 rule, for example, states that results "shall" be certified by that time.

Board member Janelle King emphasized that point in a statement to USA TODAY and said the board has taken steps to strengthen the certification process.

"My mission is not to alter the outcomes of past elections but to ensure that every vote is counted accurately and every election is conducted correctly going forward," King said. "I take offense at the baseless accusations, the intimidation of those who appointed us, and the outright lies that continue to mislead the public in hopes of garnering votes."

Board members Johnston and Jeffares didn't respond to requests for comment.

'Like changing the rules in the last game of the World Series'

The Monday lawsuit acknowledged the new rules could be read as consistent with the certification deadline, but said they could still cause delays by giving the green light to officials hunting for any election irregularity. Former and current election officials voiced similar concerns to USA TODAY.

"It's really like changing the rules in the last game of the World Series," Kim Wyman, a Republican who served as Washington's secretary of state from 2013 to 2021, told USA TODAY.

"You shouldn't make changes to election laws or rules or procedures less than 90 days before an election because it doesn't give election officials time to really prepare," Wyman said.

The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials – a group of more than 500 Georgia election officials and staff – released a statement on Aug. 21 "urging" the board to stop passing new rules while training and preparation for the upcoming election is already underway.

"In a time when maintaining public confidence in elections is more important than ever, making changes so close to Election Day only serves to heighten concerns and fears among voters," the association said.

Fears of delay, chaos

The Aug. 6 rule, which requires county officials to engage in a "reasonable inquiry" before certifying results, doesn't define what a "reasonable inquiry" is.

That lack of definition is risky, according to Wyman, because election officials are left without clear guidance on how to follow the rule, and the ambiguity could be weaponized by those unhappy with the actual results.

"When you write a rule that is so ill-defined, you are opening that up for either side to be able to leverage and call into question an election, and that is going to slow the process, and ultimately may result in the election not being certified in time," Wyman said.

The Aug. 19 rule not only mandates investigations of discrepancies between ballots and voters but also allows any individual county election board member to examine "all election-related documentation" before certifying results. Critics worry that could enable unmanageable demands.

The proposed rule that could be approved next month would require independent hand-counting of every physical ballot, in addition to the monitored machine counting that is already in place. Local officials would need to confirm the two numbers match before certifying the results.

Kathleen Hamill, a lawyer on an American Bar Association Georgia democracy task force , expressed concern at an Aug. 19 board meeting that hand-counting adds another level of work and creates potential security issues for ballots.

Wyman suggested that election officials could easily make errors in a hand count, especially after working a 12-to-16-hour Election Day.

"Having lived through, as a county auditor, the closest governor's race in the country's history, and a statewide recount that we did twice – and one was a machine with a hand recount – I can tell you that people are very bad at repetitive tasks that are mundane," she said. "That's why we've automated a lot of things in modern life, and counting ballots is a good example of that."

In a May election board meeting before Janelle King became a member, a lawyer for Raffensperger's office said "hand counts are notoriously less accurate than machine counts."

One of the three Trump-approved board members, Johnston, appeared poised to approve the hand-counting rule at a meeting last week. King, however, who is another of the three, proposed an amendment to the rule to give local workers beyond Election Day to complete the hand count. That meant a vote on the rule had to be pushed to a later board meeting.

Why critics say rules could assist election theft

Proponents of the rules say they are meant to ensure election result accuracy and boost public confidence in the system. Former Virginia Attorney General and Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli, for example, spoke at the election board's Aug. 19 meeting in defense of the rule on investigating discrepancies between the number of voters and cast ballots.

"If more ballots show up than voters, good grief, I would think anybody would want to flag and solve that problem as soon as possible," he said.

Some critics worry certification delays could spur not just chaos and misinformation, but also outright failures to certify, which could then alter the election's outcome.

That's because if Georgia failed to certify, for example, Vice President Kamala Harris winning the key swing state, it would cost her the state's 16 Electoral College votes. Or if an individual Georgia county failed to certify, the state might certify its statewide results without including the votes of that county, which could change who gets the 16 college votes.

“What folks need to understand when we’re talking about not certifying is − that’s not an academic exercise,” said Hannah Fried, the executive director of All Voting Is Local, a nonpartisan voter rights group. “That is your vote not being counted.”

In a New York Times op-ed , MSNBC host Rachel Maddow argued that refusals to certify results in the upcoming election will more likely be part of "a bad-faith strategy to mess with the democratic process" than an indication of real electoral problems. She noted the increasingly common Republican tendency since 2020 to refuse to certify election results .

At least 19 election board members across nine Georgia counties objected to certifying elections in the past four years, according to a statewide survey by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Who is behind the rules?

At least one aide in Trump's efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election has been involved in the recent rule changes, according to ProPublica. It reported that Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was on the call with Trump when he proposed that Raffensperger find him nearly 12,000 votes to reverse Biden's victory in the state, was behind an initial draft of the Aug. 19 rule on investigating discrepancies between ballot and voter totals.

Mitchell told USA TODAY in an email there "is not ONE shred of evidence that the rules will ‘delay’ certification."

She noted that the new rules don't change the deadlines under Georgia law for certifying results, and said they create a procedure for implementing existing requirements under state law.

Fears that the changes will delay certification, create chaos, or be leveraged to undermine election results "bear no resemblance to reality," she said.

Georgia Republican Party Chair Josh McKoon also emailed the text of two other proposed rules to one of the board members in July, according to a lawsuit from nonprofit government watchdog American Oversight. The three board members initially passed versions of the rules at a meeting that the state attorney general's office warned would likely be unlawful, American Oversight alleged. King told USA TODAY the meeting was lawful, but "in the spirit of board unity," the three Trump-approved members agreed to withdraw the rules and revisit them later.

The Georgia Republican Party didn't respond to a request for comment.

"This is coming from national extremist activists who, by and large, have spent the last four years trying to overturn the prior election by promoting false information," said Boockvar, the Democrat who served as Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth from Jan. 2019 to Feb. 2021.

The Trump-approved board members also voted on Aug. 7 to reinvestigate the 2020 election, despite a caution by the governor-appointed board chairman that they may be breaking the law. Multiple counts in Georgia confirmed Biden won the state.

Trump posted a video of the Aug. 7 vote on his Truth Social media platform with an approving message, stating that officials "MUST get moving on this" and "WE MUST WIN GEORGIA IN 2024!!!"

In a Monday statement, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said he is seeking guidance from the state attorney general on whether and how he is authorized to act on ethics complaints that Georgia Democrats have brought against the election board.

Fears for November election

A core point former and current election officials turned back to is that last-minute rule changes are breeding grounds for delay and uncertainty in the aftermath of voting, and ultimately for mistrust.

"The public confidence in our election system is really what's at stake in this upcoming election," former Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman said.

Raffensperger said in a press release that Georgia law already has protocols to handle ballots and ensure they remain secure.

An effort "to change these laws by unelected bureaucrats on the eve of the election introduces the opportunity for error, lost or stolen ballots, and fraud," he said.

Contributing: Erin Mansfield

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump-approved Georgia election officials' new rules could spur 'doubt and suspicion'