“The election results are being held in a state that is not in accordance with the Constitution, and are not subject to the Constitution,” the statement said.
Grubbs said election board members need the authority and discretion before deciding whether to certify an election. Requiring document disclosure would ensure votes aren’t missed, as was the case when election workers initially didn’t read memory cards in some counties, he said.
“Every effort must be made to ensure that every vote is counted correctly the first time,” Grubbs told the state elections board. “I don’t understand why we can’t increase the security of our process.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The rule changes proposed by the commission on Tuesday follow another proposed rule in May that would have required a “reasonable investigation” before county election boards could certify the accuracy of results. That proposal came from Fulton Election Commissioner Michael Heekin, a Republican who refused to certify the presidential primary earlier this year.
The State Election Board could vote to finalize the “reasonable investigation” rules within the next few weeks, and the rules considered Tuesday will go through a public comment period before a subsequent vote.
Credit: Ziyu Julian Zhu/AJC
Credit: Ziyu Julian Zhu/AJC
Sarah Tyndall Ghazal, the only Democratic-appointed board member, said certification is a necessary part of the voting process and is required by law to be completed before candidates can go to court to challenge the election.
“Your rules allow board members to refuse to certify until they have seen all the paperwork,” Ghazal told Grubbs before voting against the rules. “Not all paperwork is required to certify an election. … What’s important is that the number of votes does not exceed the number of ballots and there are not more ballots than voters checked in.”
The elections board resisted a proposal from State Election Board Chairman John Favier, who had called for a specific list of basic documents that must be provided before certification, such as a statement of election results, a summary form of vote totals and a list of voters.
“I think there should be a list of documents that the Registration and Election Commission can check so they don’t have to go through the endless searching of, ‘I need this document, I need that document,'” said Favier, an appointee of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
But a majority of the committee opposes any restrictions on election board members’ requests, which could provide justification for voting against certification, as was the case in Fulton County.
“If you can’t investigate it, don’t invest in it,” said Janelle King, a Republican-appointed member of the board. “And if you find something wrong, what do you do? Do you just set it aside and go ahead and certify it?”
Ferbier countered that election officials are supposed to certify the results, investigate problems and then report irregularities to prosecutors or the state elections board.
The committee also advanced two other proposed rules that could be completed before this November’s election.
One rule would require poll workers to manually count votes cast after polling stations close to ensure accuracy, but opponents have raised concerns that a manual tally could delay the announcement of results on election night.
Another rule would require counties to publish reports on their websites after an election that show and explain any discrepancies in vote tallies.
The State Election Board did not reconsider the appointment of election observers to monitor this fall’s Fulton County elections, a condition of reprimanding the county in May for double-scanning ballots in a 2020 recount.
But the election monitoring plan is still alive: A monitoring team could soon be approved by the Fulton County Board of Elections, at a cost to the county of about $100,000, and then be considered by the State Board of Elections.
