**Georgia Judges Block Election Board’s Rule Changes for November Election**

In a significant development leading up to the November election, Georgia judges have delivered another substantial setback to the state’s election board's attempts to alter election rules. On Wednesday, Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr. invalidated seven newly proposed rules from the board, including a contentious ballot hand-count directive that another judge had already temporarily suspended on Tuesday. Judge Cox declared that the board's rules, instituted by its Republican majority, were inconsistent with Georgia’s election statutes and overstepped the board’s legal authority.

Neither the state election board members nor the legal representatives of Eternal Vigilance Action Inc., the conservative group contesting the rules, have yet commented on the rulings. Following the temporary block of the hand-count rule on Tuesday, board member Janelle King remarked that public awareness of the State Election Board’s diligence in overseeing the election processes is itself a victory.

The eleventh-hour rule changes have stirred concern among both Republican and Democratic officials. King and two Republican colleagues on the five-member board, who have earned accolades from former President Donald Trump for their staunch stance on election integrity, passed the controversial measures despite Georgia Republican Attorney General Chris Carr's advice that the changes might be unlawful. King disputed Carr's legal opinion in her Tuesday statement.

The hand-count rule would have necessitated thousands of poll workers in Georgia to manually verify that ballot totals matched machine tallies, intended as a measure to correct discrepancies. However, studies suggest hand counts are slower and less precise than machine counts. Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cautioned that the rule could lead to "errors, lost or stolen ballots, and fraud." He broadly criticized the state board's election changes as "a mess."

Additionally, the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, a bipartisan organization of more than 500 members, warned that the hand-count rule could erode public trust in the electoral process and overwhelm already exhausted election staff, setting them up for failure.

Cox, in his Wednesday decision, described the hand-count method as "cumbersome," noting that Georgia election laws do not mandate such a process for poll officers once polls close. He emphasized that the rule would unnecessarily broaden the responsibilities of poll officials beyond established legal requirements in ballot processing.

The ruling marks another critical judicial intervention aiming to maintain the integrity and consistency of election procedures in Georgia as the state prepares for the upcoming election.