The people who called the 2020 election the “most secure” in history have spent the past several years slandering as “election deniers” anyone who questions that election’s administration. But others remain frustrated by the many last-minute changes to election laws and processes that occurred shortly before that presidential contest — changes that in some cases may have been illegal.
In Georgia, the state election board unanimously adopted a rule change in May 2020, citing Covid-19. It allowed counties to open and scan absentee ballots up to three weeks before the November 2020 general election and several other elections in the 2020 election cycle.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had declared a public health state of emergency on March 13, 2020, and called for a special session of the general assembly to ratify this action through a joint resolution, which the legislature approved. Then. in a move that remains controversial, Secretary of State Raffensperger announced on March 24, 2020, that he would be “mailing absentee ballot request forms to every Georgia voter,” a number he placed at 6.9 million.
Emergency Rule Approved
During a May 18, 2020, state election board meeting, Raffensperger’s General Counsel Ryan Germany argued in favor of the proposed rule change. He told the board that 1.4 million absentee ballot applications had been accepted, most had already been delivered, and 360,000 had already been returned to election officials.
“I think the last presidential preference primary, general primary, there was 36,000 total absentee vote-by-mail ballots cast in the
