I'm not thrilled with this, but I also know that if ballots that need to be handled by hand are accepted, it will take much longer to get election results, and people will complain about that, and be suspicious.
Georgia Politics
| Sept 10, 2020
By Mark Niesse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The State Election Board passed a rule Tuesday that sets thresholds for how scanners count absentee ballots in Georgia, discarding votes that fill in less than 10% of an oval.
The rule means that votes marked as check marks or X’s outside ovals won’t necessarily be recorded.
Opponents of the rule, which passed 3-1, said election officials should count all votes where intent is clear.
But the State Election Board’s majority said all legible votes will be counted, and there needs to be a standard so votes are clearly defined and review panels aren’t overwhelmed with ambiguous marks.
The decision on what counts as a vote comes after mismarked or lightly marked ballots didn’t register on ballot scanners in at least five counties after the June 9 primary, leaving bipartisan panels to go through them one by one to determine voters' intent.
The board also approved a rule clarifying absentee ballot instructions so they tell voters to completely fill in empty ovals.
“At some point the voter has to follow the instructions to a certain level,” said Matt Mashburn, a member of the State Election Board and a Republican poll watcher. “These rules are working very, very hard to bend as far as they can.”
Board member David Worley, a Democratic Party appointee, said he opposed the rule because it could result in votes being thrown out.
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