Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) voiced his concerns about the Georgia State Election Board ruling on Friday that will require ballots in Georgia to be hand-counted by election workers the night of the election in addition to the normal machine tallies that take place.
Speaking on Inside with Jen Psaki Sunday, Warnock said he is “very concerned” about this ruling, linking it to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to “find” votes in Georgia in 2020.
“I’m very concerned, Jen. All of us should remember that famous phone call, a man from Florida, calling in to Georgia saying he needed 11,780 votes. He didn’t get it. And apparently, these members of the state board of elections whom he calls pit bulls are out there doing his bidding and trying to create a scenario in which they can declare by fiat who the winner of Georgia is. … This is how voter suppression happens, undermine votes a little bit here, a little bit there,” he said.
The Georgia senator then claimed that this effort from the elections board is evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats are “winning” in Georgia.
“The news that Georgia voters ought to be paying attention to is this: The fact that they’re doing this means that they know we’re winning. They know that the momentum is with Kamala Harris, and this effort to turn the democracy on its head … it won’t stand,” Warnock said.
The Republican-led elections board voted 3-2 to require the hand-counting of all ballots in the Peach State. The move was celebrated by allies of Trump, who believe that the changes will help alleviate concerns of voter fraud the former president raised four years ago in relation to President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state.
The decision also sparked some criticism from election officials and democracy advocates who fear it will cause delays, errors, and increased costs for the state.
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Notably, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in August called the then-proposal “misguided” and slammed the elections board members as “unelected bureaucrats who have never run an election and seem to reject the advice of anyone who ever has.”
The most recent polling average from RealClearPolitics shows a tight race in Georgia, with Trump leading Harris by 1.7 percentage points, 48% to 46.3%.