“This is nothing more than a circus that’s being put on by those who promote the ’big lie’ ” that Trump won the election, Fulton Commission Chairman Robb Pitts said. “Where does it end? The votes have been counted. The elections have been certified. It’s over.”
Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said the review is “built on conspiracy theories that these characters are using to bankroll their pockets and sow seeds of disinformation.”
Dennis said a better way for skeptics to increase confidence in elections is to become involved in them.
“What this (review) is doing is not making Georgia better,” Dennis said. “It’s making Georgia worse.”
Citing state and federal law, Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ruled that ballots must remain in the custody of county election officials. Maintaining government control of ballots will prevent the possibility that they could be altered by those conducting the review.
The law tightens absentee ballot restrictions in a number of ways, limiting drop boxes, changing ID requirements and requiring ballots to be printed on security paper.
Instead of increasing confidence in elections, repeated ballot reviews can create the appearance of impropriety long after elections have concluded, said Tammy Patrick, an adviser at the Democracy Fund, a voting rights organization.
“The precedent this sets is that if you don’t like the outcome of an election, you can drag it out into perpetuity,” said Patrick, who previously oversaw post-election audits in Maricopa County in Arizona. “They’re continuing to drive the narrative that the election was stolen, and there’s no answer that will satisfy them.”