Peach Tree Times

Kevin Moncla, the director of the Election Oversight Group, said the common sense election rules recently adopted by the Georgia Election Board are "critical" measures to ensure election security in the state. 

"The recently adopted rules, like the one requiring reconciliation of the number of ballots cast with the number of voters - by polling location - are critical," Moncla told Peach Tree Times. "Although one would expect that such basic accounting protocols would already exist, they are largely not practiced in the state of Georgia.

"Reconciliation and a uniform canvass process would eliminate the double-scanning and double-counting of the thousands of ballots we have identified in our complaints," he said. "As it stands - without the pending rule changes, most counties have no realistic check on the electronic voting systems - not at all."  

The Georgia Election Board has adopted an important certification rule, requiring reconciliation of voters to ballots before election tallies can be certified at the precinct level. Supporters of the proposal have compared reconciliation to the process required of bank tellers at the end of each day. 

"Just as the bank teller’s cash drawer must reconcile daily, reconciliation of the voters to the ballots to the number of votes is imperative to ensure accurate election results," supporters have argued. 

The new ruling implements the statutory requirement of reconciliation, which already was codified in state election law.

The Republican majority Georgia Election Board voted 3-2 to adopt the rule. Chairman John Fervier, a Republican appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp, voted with the board's lone Democrat, Sara Tindall Ghazal, appointed by the state Democratic Party. 

Voting in favor were Dr. Janice W. Johnston, appointed by the state GOP; Rick Jeffares, appointed by the state Senate; and Janelle King, appointed by the state House.

Other features of the new rule include assurance of "one person-one vote," and it guards against certification of inaccurate or erroneous results, such as double scanning of ballots.

Further, through the process of reconciliation, the number of voters to ballots from all methods of voting - absentee, advance voting and on election day - must match. At each precinct, the Board will compare the number of unique names by each voting method to the number of ballots cast of each type.

The Election Oversight Group performs election investigations and consulting services across the country, with a focus on Georgia and Arizona election. The group has been documenting specific issues with the Georgia State Election Board on various election issues for the past three years.