In case you missed the news, John:

"Georgia’s State Election Board passed arguably the most contentious of the new rules it had been considering for conducting elections in the state over the objections of county-level election directors and over the advice of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. "

You read that right -- over the objections of the officials who run our elections here in Georgia, even including Republican state AG Chris Car and Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger -- three MAGA-aligned members of the State Election Board approved the rule mandating a hand count of paper ballots at the close of polls at every poll site, before the actual tabulation of votes or before even submitting them to county election heads.

The MAGA acolytes running the board didn't care that their rule change within the 90 days before an election violates federal law. They didn't care that the Attorney General of the state, a member of their own party, said their move wasn't supported by any of Georgia's election laws, suppressive or otherwise. They didn't care that their moves overstepped the legal authority of their board either. They had their marching orders as election deniers and wanted to take every step possible to ensure chaos on Election Day.

So what can we do? if you live in Georgia, vote early or by mail ahead of Election Day to make sure your ballot doesn't get lost in the melee. If you don't live in Georgia but have friends or family who do, encourage them to vote early however they can. And everyone can support our work in Georgia and beyond to protect our elections and our right to vote.

Voters deserve better, John, both here in Georgia and across the country. Help us restore faith in our elections and defend voting rights by kicking in $25 or whatever you can right now to fight back against election deniers everywhere >>

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Need proof from people here on the ground?

Milton Kidd directs elections in Douglas County. He said he’s already heard from some of his poll workers that they don’t want to do the job if they have to hand count paper ballots at their precincts.

“That's not a hypothetical; that will happen,” Kidd said. “There’s going to be people that are going to be having these conversations across the state of Georgia that are not going to want to be poll workers.”

If that happened, election directors said it would throw another roadblock between the end of the election and something that is in fact mandated by law: the certification of local election results and their transmission to the state. 

Georgia House Rep. Saira Draper of District 90 said she couldn’t see how the hand count rule or any of the other rules still under consideration will make the 2024 election better. “I think what is happening is we are setting up our counties to fail.” Instead of election security, Draper said, the real result of the new rules would likely just be chaos. 

The immediate answer -- while these rules are fought in the courts -- is to make sure we get our pro-democracy votes in early so that they don't get caught up in the rush of Election Day.

Help us spread the word in Georgia and inform voters of their voting rights nationwide with $25 or however much you can today before it's too late >>

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