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‘The only choice I have’ – Early voting begins in battleground state Georgia
A judge in the US state of Georgia has blocked an order to manually count ballots for November’s presidential election.
Justice Robert McBurney said poll workers would not have been properly trained to process millions of ballots and the last-minute changes led to “administrative confusion.” He added that it would be.
The hand-counting requirement was passed last month by a pro-Trump majority on the Georgia Board of Elections, and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris welcomed Tuesday’s ruling.
Early voting began in Georgia on Tuesday, with record numbers of votes cast in key battleground states ahead of Election Day on November 5th.
More than 328,000 people voted in person or by mail on the first day of voting, more than double the previous record of 136,000 in 2020, officials said.
Approximately 5 million votes were cast for presidential candidates in Georgia that year, and Democrat Joe Biden won the state by a margin of just under 12,000 votes.
Trump is currently facing eight charges, which he denies, for refusing to accept the results and attempting to illegally change them.
A recording of the call shows him instructing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes."
Under the hand-counting rule, three poll workers in the state’s more than 6,500 precincts pry open sealed boxes containing ballots that have already been scanned by machines and count the votes to see if there are any matches. I needed to check.
Critics said the rule would allow election board members to delay or refuse to certify election results by the state.
In his judgment, Mr Justice McBurney said that the “eleven-and-a-half-hour implementation of the hand count rule” would reduce public confidence in the results.
“This election season is full of ups and downs. The memory of January 6th (the storming of the U.S. Capitol) remains strong, regardless of how we view the fame or infamy of that day. It adds uncertainty and disorder to the election process. “Everything has failed the people’s expectations,” he wrote.
On Tuesday night, the former president held a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, where he addressed his long-standing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and called on his supporters to deliver a victory “too big to rig.” Ta.
On the same day, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris continued her outreach efforts to black voters after polls showed that President Trump is gaining ground among black voters.
She told radio host Charlamagne (real name Leonard McKelvey), urging black voters not to give up on politics. Please don’t participate. ”
Her campaign welcomed the temporary blocking of hand-counting rules, saying it was an attempt to sow doubts into the voting process.
In a separate ruling Monday, Judge McBurney said that after a Republican appointee to the board earlier this year refused to certify the results of Georgia’s presidential primary, members of the board of elections The court ruled that it must be recognized.
The certification case is one of a number of election-related lawsuits that have passed through courts in Georgia, one of seven key battleground states expected to decide the race between Trump and Harris.
