'Off the deep end': MAGA-controlled election board ruling stuns lawmakers and experts

A MAGA-controlled board's new mandate that Georgia ballots be hand-counted stunned journalists, lawmakers, legal experts and Americans who fear "chaos" and a "legal coup" just 46 days before the presidential election.

The Georgia State Election Board voted 3-2 to require that county election boards hand count ballots and compare their results to electronic voting machine tallies — a move critics argued Friday was designed to deliver the state to former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.

"All eyes need to be on Georgia y’all," Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D) wrote on X. "MAGA extremists are working overtime to undermine election integrity just 3 weeks out from the start of early voting. These new rules are going to cause so much chaos."

Romman was not alone in condemning the decision that Ari Berman, voting rights reporter for Mother Jones, warned added a burdensome and error-prone step to the process.

Berman lambasted the three Republican appointees who earned personal praise from Trump as "pitbulls" fighting for "victory."

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"[The requirement] will make counting longer, costlier & more inaccurate," Berman wrote on X. "[It] will be used as yet another pretext for GOP boards not to certify election if Harris wins."

In his Mother Jones analysis, Berman spoke with Sara Tindall Ghazal, the board’s only Democratic member.

“We’re so far off the deep end of sanity here,” Ghazal reportedly said. “It’s a terrible, terrible idea to do this sort of thing with no notice, no training.”

Georgia State Rep. Saira Draper agreed, arguing the hand-count rule would only ensure Election Day tallies were less accurate and further delayed.

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Media pundits split on their views according to party lines.

While MSNBC host Chris Hayes condemned the decision as "crazy on the merits" and "transparently an attempt at sabotage," Former Fox News producer and conservative influencer Kyle Becker called it a win for election integrity.

"Georgia’s State Election Board just passed a resolution to ensure *HAND COUNT* vote totals match those of the voting machines," Becker wrote. "The voting integrity measure will go a long way to prevent fra*d in the 2024 election."

But Houston Chronicle reporter Jen Rice predicted an Election Day "circus" and Atlanta News First investigator Brendan Keefe opined the ruling exposed its supporters hypocrisy.

"The same board that criticizes Fulton County’s abilities now thinks Fulton & all the others can hand-count every ballot by the day after the election?" he asked.

Several legal experts aligned themselves with the Georgia Attorney General Office's view that the board had made a decision beyond its legal right.

"Georgia elections are under attack," wrote Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. "Even GA’s Attorney General issued a formal opinion that the latest missive-hand count of ballots—is unlawful. One of the most potent counters is a tidal wave of turnout too big to rig."

National security attorney Bradley Moss said simply, "No chance we know Georgia results on election night."

Constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis predicted the Fulton County court system would step in and rectify what he characterized as an abuse of power.

"There will be a swift and successful action for declaratory relief in the Fulton County Superior Court," Kreis wrote.

"The State Election Board can perfect *how* election processes should work to ensure conformity in election administration; they do not have the power to *create* new election law that's substantially different from the OCGA's election code."

But rhetorician Jen Mercieca took a more pessimistic view and argued the move represented a larger and darker trend in American conservative politics.

"Georgia election officials plotting to violate the will of the people," she wrote. "Remember when I told y’all to look up 'competitive authoritarianism?' This is that. A 'legal coup'—a coup conducted through the legal system."