The US state of Georgia has ordered a hand count of ballots cast in the November election, potentially causing further delays in a system that took days to produce a final result four years ago.
Georgia's election board voted 3-2 to count hands, despite objections from state officials and poll workers.
Around five million presidential votes were cast in Georgia in 2020, with Joe Biden defeating Donald Trump in the key battleground state by a margin of around 12,000 votes.
While manual counting of ballots is common in many countries, including the United Kingdom, it is extremely rare in U.S. elections.
The rule passed Friday requires three poll workers in each of the state's 6,500 voting precincts to begin counting ballots on election night.
Opposing the move was the state's top elections official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, who warned that a hand count would introduce the possibility of “errors, lost or stolen ballots and fraud.”
In a phone call after the 2020 election, Trump pressured Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” – a move that, along with other alleged attempts to overturn the result, led to criminal charges against Trump and some of his allies.
Raffensperger publicly sparred with Trump but also ordered a manual recount of the state's ballots, which slightly changed the vote total but confirmed the overall result.
Trump's supporters on the Georgia Board of Elections argued that hand counting would make the upcoming election safer.
“I don’t want to set a precedent that speed is more important than accuracy,” said board member Janelle King.
Opponents of the move included county election officials, poll workers and voting rights organizations, several of whom testified at a hearing Friday.
They warned of delays and potential chaos caused by changing the rules so close to the election. Early voting in Georgia begins October 15th. Election day is November 5th.
Ethan Compton, the elections director for Irwin County, said ballots have already been sent to military personnel stationed overseas.
“The election has begun,” Mr. Compton said. “This is not the time to change the rules. “That will only undermine the integrity of our elections.”
Committee Chairman John Fervier, a Republican, voted against the rule for this reason.
“I do think it’s too close to the election,” he said.
Fervier warned that the board may not have the legal authority to require hand counts and that the change will almost certainly bring legal challenges.
Voting rights organizations say hand counting would complicate the voting system and is less accurate than machine counting.
Many Republicans have come to believe Trump's oft-repeated but false claim that the electoral system is rife with fraud and has been “rigged” by Democrats.
During a rally in Atlanta in August, Trump called board members “pit bulls fighting to win.”
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, said before the Electoral College vote: “They are fully trying to create a scenario in which they could refuse to certify an election whose results they don't like.”
The rule change came as early voting began Friday in other states, including Virginia, Minnesota and South Dakota.
