Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) is “very concerned” about the state’s new hand-counted ballot rule, which he sees as an “effort to turn the democracy on its head.”
The pastor and U.S. Senator appeared on MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki on Sept. 22, where he responded to the Georgia election board’s recent ruling that local precincts must hand-count ballots on Election Day. The decision came despite concerns from election officials and opposition from some state authorities who said the last-minute change could cause delays and confusion on election night and the days that follow.
According to Sen. Warnock, the Sept. 20 ruling was prompted by the Republican-led state’s fear of Democrats growing in power.
ad width="320" height="250" type="doubleclick" data-slot="/21868623726/site264.tmus/amp2" data-multi-size="320x50,300x250" data-multi-size-validation="false" rtc-config='{"vendors": {"prebidappnexuspsp": {"PLACEMENT_ID": "27198239"}}, "timeoutMillis": 500}'>“The news that Georgia voters [ought to be] paying attention to is this: The fact that they are doing this, means that they know we’re winning,” Warnock said.
“They know that the momentum is with Kamala Harris, and this effort to turn the democracy on its head, so that rather than the voters picking their representatives, the folks who are running get to pick their voters — it won’t stand.”
Elsewhere, Warnock spoke of the “voter suppression” that he experienced during his election runs and the type that’s known to happen in efforts to stop certain communities from voting.
“This is how voter suppression happens. Undermine votes a little bit here a little there,” Warnock said after recalling his lawsuit against Georgia state officials to allow Georgia voters to vote during the first weekend of his run-off election.
Georgia’s election board voted 3-2 to mandate hand-counting of ballots in addition to the existing machine count, a groundbreaking decision made with less than 50 days remaining before Election Day. Sen. Warnock spoke on what the ruling could lead to and compared it to the controversial ballot issue of the 2000 election between George Bush and Al Gore.
Warnock was “old enough to remember Florida [in] 2000,” and doesn’t want that “mess” in Georgia.
“We all saw the mess that that was, and we don’t need that here again in Georgia, so we will continue to press the issue,” he said.
Recent actions by the board have heightened attention on election administration in Georgia, a state where former President Donald Trump and others promoted baseless fraud claims after the 2020 election and which is anticipated to be a key swing state in the 2024 race. The Friday ruling requires the poll manager and two poll officers at each precinct to manually count the paper ballots in each ballot box and compare the total with the number recorded by the ballot scanner.
Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger expressed his concerns over the hand-counting of ballots.
“Attorney General Chris Carr has stated that these rules would not withstand a legal challenge, and I have worked every day to strengthen Georgia’s election law to ensure our elections remain safe, secure, and free,” Raffensperger said after the election board’s ruling.
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