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Georgia senator announced new legal action against State Election Board

By FOX 5 Atlanta Digital Team
Published  September 25, 2024 8:17am EDT
Georgia
FOX 5 Atlanta

ATLANTA - A Georgia state lawmaker plans to take new legal action against the controversial State Election Board following their latest voting rule changes.

Democratic state Sen. Nabilah Islam-Parkes had previously filed an ethics complaint against three board members, accusing them of taking illegal action to help former President Donald Trump win the 2024 election.

"These election board members that are not acting in the good faith of Georgians need to be immediately removed," Islam-Parkes told FOX 5.

Those accusations stemmed from an impromptu July 12th meeting board members called to vote on new requirements for counties to review documents and verify overseas military ballot counts. Islam-Parkes claimed the action violated Georgia's Open Meetings Act and the state code of ethics.

The senator plans to announce the new legal action at a press conference on Wednesday at the Georgia Capitol.

Concerns over Georgia State Elections Board rule changes

Georgia election board considers more rule changes

Georgia's election board is considering making more changes to the state's electoral system just 42 days before the election.

The legal action comes days after the board approved new rules that would go into effect days before early voting was set to begin in the 2024 presidential election.

On Monday, the board voted unanimously to advance a change requiring county governments to provide ballot scans within 72 hours of Election Day. Other proposals, ranging from releasing the statewide voter roll and mandating manual re-counts, were either withdrawn or turned down.  

At a previous meeting on Friday, the board voted to approve a new rule that requires poll workers to count the number of paper ballots by hand after voting is completed, a change that critics worry could delay the reporting of election night results.

RELATED: Georgia State Election Board approves new hand-counting ballot rule

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station set up at Grady High School for the midterm elections on November 6, 2018, in Atlanta, (Photo by Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

The board’s decision went against the advice of the state attorney general’s office, the secretary of state’s office and an association of county election officials. Three Republican board members praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally last month in Atlanta voted to approve the measure, while the lone Democrat on the board and the nonpartisan chair voted to reject it.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last month called the hand counting rule "misguided," saying it would delay the reporting of election results and introduce risks to chain of custody procedures.

Two rules the board passed in August related to certifying vote counts have been challenged in two separate lawsuits, one filed by Democrats and the other filed by a conservative group. A judge has set an Oct. 1 trial on the Democrats’ lawsuit.