Last Friday, the Georgia State Election Board convened a scheduled hearing that resulted in the passing of a rule requiring precincts in the state to count the number of physical paper ballots at the end of Election Day voting and compare it with the poll pad check-ins.
As discussed in an article last week, The Gateway Pundit pointed out that several counties in Georgia “found” almost 6,000 votes during a November 16th hand re-count that was initially started as a “risk-limiting audit” but modified to count the entirety of the ballots.
Had only the risk-limiting audit taken place, the discrepancy likely would not have been discovered and almost 6,000 Georgians would not have had their votes properly counted. On the contrary, had this SEB Rule been in place for 2020, the 6,000 ballot discrepancy would have likely been caught right away.
HUGE! Georgia State Election Board Passes Rule Requiring Hand-Count of Ballots at Precinct Level
This common sense rule, however, seemed to incite a reaction from certain organizations that showed up to the meeting in protest, but more importantly, it pushed one particular board who voted against the rule to join Rachel Maddow on MSNBC to promulgate “assumptions” about her follow board members “motives” in passing the rule.
Over the weekend, The Gateway Pundit reported on blatant misinformation spread by Maddow on her MSNBC show, claiming that counting ballots in Georgia would now take “months”.
This blatantly false statement was a fear-mongering tactic to illicit an emotional response from her followers.
In reality, the “hand-count” was simply a tally of the total number of ballots, and a comparison to the number of voters checked in at that precinct.
In response to a misleading X post from Mark Niesse of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Marilyn Marks, one of the plaintiffs in the Curling v. Raffensperger trial that took place last January and the executive director of Coalition for Good Governance, posted to X the following:
Come on, guys! This is a simple quick 10 min exercise to determine the NUMBER of ballots being transmitted to HQ to be sure that all were accounted for and not left in scanners bins and crevices. It is a standard procedures in most states.
How much “delay” would that cause??? https://t.co/UyN92904Y0— Marilyn Marks (@MarilynRMarks1) September 20, 2024
On Friday night, Maddow had on SEB member Sara Tindall Ghazal to propagate misinformation about the rule.
Ghazal did clarify that it is a hand tally of the number of ballots and not a hand tabulation of the ballots, as Maddow alluded to in a previous clip The Gateway Pundit shared.
However, Ghazal did say:
“We’re just weeks away from the election. For counties to try to re-train their poll workers and poll managers for them to hire more workers because workers who’ve been out there for 14-16 hours a day and are not in any shape to count thousands of ballots accurately…it’s just absolutely untenable.”
To be clear, poll workers would only have to reconcile the ballots with the poll pads on Election Day in-person voting.
Unfortunately, the rule to require reconciling ballots with the poll pads on early in-person voting days did not pass. So Ghazal’s argument about working “14 to 16 hours a day” is misleading. It would just be the one day.
But more disturbing is the idea that they’re “not in any shape to count thousands of ballots accurately.”
According to Marks, Fulton County had approximately 148 ballots per precinct on Election Day. Statewide, the average per precinct was 575. That is a fraction of the “thousands” that Ghazal stated on MSNBC.
Board member Janelle King addressed the misinformation spread by Ghazal very publicly at today’s hearing:
Fireworks errupt at this mornings SEB meeting. Board member King addresses the misinformation coming from the mainstream media as well as other members of the board. This shows why it’s so important that we have people who are willing to take a… pic.twitter.com/bgSLofT6CX
— Greasy Boots (@greasyboots) September 23, 2024
The rule currently only applies to Election Day ballots, meaning early in-person voting will not have the same confirmation requirements.
