Georgia election officials worry a GOP-led board will OK last-minute voting changes

ATLANTA — Georgia’s State Election Board is preparing to vote on nearly a dozen rule changes Friday that could take effect before the upcoming election, concerning local officials who are training poll workers and processing absentee ballot applications.

The once-obscure state panel is already facing scrutiny for advancing a pair of rule changes in August that could disrupt the certification of election results. The moves by the board’s Republican majority have drawn praise from former President Donald Trump and pushback from Georgia’s GOP secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and other election officials.

“You can have 10 election directors stand up there and say, ‘This is bad, this is bad, this is bad.’ And then the board says, ‘I make a motion that we approve this rule,’” says Travis Doss, the elections director in Richmond County.

Among the changes up for a vote on Friday is a new requirement that a polling place’s manager and two witnesses hand-count the paper ballots in every ballot box to verify that the count matches the number of ballots recorded by voting machines.

Other proposals include adding hand counts of absentee ballots, requiring the public posting of all registered voters in the upcoming election and expanding access for poll watchers.

The Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, which represents 500 members statewide, has urged the state board to pause implementing new rules until after the election. In a letter, the association wrote that its members are “gravely concerned that dramatic changes at this stage will disrupt the preparation and training processes already in motion.”

Election officials worry about needing to retrain poll workers

That’s the case in suburban