Georgia judge blocks rule requiring hand-count of election ballots

A Georgia judge on Tuesday temporarily halted a new rule requiring a labour-intensive hand count of potentially millions of ballots in the US presidential election.

The hand-count rule was passed on 20 September by a pro-Trump conservative majority of Georgia's Republican-controlled election board who say they are attempting to make the 5 November election more secure and transparent.

Georgia, where early voting began on Tuesday, is one of seven states likely to determine the contest between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Judge Robert McBurney said in his Tuesday ruling that it was appropriate to pause the change because it introduced fresh uncertainty into the process just weeks before Election Day.

"Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public," according to a copy of the decision posted by Democracy Docket, a website founded by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias that tracks election cases.

"The administrative chaos that will - not may - ensue is entirely inconsistent with the obligations of our boards of elections (and the State Election Board) to ensure that our elections are fair, legal, and orderly," the judge wrote.

Representatives of the Georgia State Election Board and Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

The hand-count rule would require three poll workers in each of the state's more than 6500 precincts to open the sealed boxes of ballots scanned by machines and conduct a hand count, starting as soon as election night.

Voting rights groups had said the hand-count rule could allow rogue county election board members to delay or deny certification of election results, throwing the state's vote into chaos, while the state attorney general's office warned the board was likely exceeding its statutory authority.

The board's 3-2 vote was powered by three allies of Trump, who lost to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in the 2020 election and made false claims of widespread voting fraud.

"From the beginning, this rule was an effort to delay election results to sow doubt in the outcome, and our democracy is stronger thanks to this decision to block it," according to the statement from Quentin Fulks, a spokesperson for the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Democratic National Committee co-executive director Monica Guardiola and congresswoman Nikema Williams.

-Reuters