How do state election certification procedures and tabulation tape chain-of-custody rules work in Georgia and what reforms have been proposed since 2020?
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Executive summary
Georgia law assigns counties the ministerial duty to certify local returns, after which the secretary of state must tabulate and certify statewide results, and administrative rules require signed poll (tabulator) tapes and documented chain-of-custody for scanner outputs—requirements that came under scrutiny after 2020 and have spawned several new rules and lawsuits since [1] [2] [3]. The State Election Board and the legislature have pushed rule changes intended to tighten post‑ballot processes but those changes have been sharply contested in court and in public debate, with advocates and critics offering divergent views on whether the reforms strengthen integrity or invite partisan delay [4] [5] [6].
1. How certification is supposed to work under Georgia law
Under Georgia statute, county certifying officials must complete a canvass and deliver certified returns to the secretary of state, who “shall immediately proceed to tabulate, compute, and canvass the votes cast” and then certify the statewide tabulation, language that establishes a mandatory, ministerial flow from county canvass to statewide certification [1]. The Brennan Center explains that this system exists to prevent small groups of officials from obstructing outcomes—Georgia’s law and longstanding practice view certification as a duty rather than a discretionary power [1].
2. The county role and the mechanics of tabulation tapes
State rules require that poll managers and two witnesses print three tabulator tapes for each voting machine and sign them “indicating that it is a true and correct copy of the tape produced by the ballot scanner,” a process intended to create a paper audit trail and a chain-of-custody for machine totals [2] [3]. Those tapes are treated as part of the official record; their signatures are meant to certify that the reported machine totals reflect what the scanner produced at the close of voting [3].
3. What went wrong in Fulton County and why it matters
A complaint and subsequent State Election Board proceeding focused on Fulton County’s admission that more than 130 tabulator tapes from 2020 lacked the required signatures for advance‑voting scanners, a lapse that critics labeled a break in chain‑of‑custody and that county officials described as an administrative error now addressed through new procedures and training [3] [7]. Advocates who raised the complaint argued the unsigned tapes affected roughly 315,000 early ballots and therefore undermined the legal proof of authentic totals, while Fulton County attorneys and some board members said reforms and improved record‑keeping have since been implemented [7] [8].
4. Reforms adopted since 2020: new rules, definitions and emergency measures
Since 2020 the State Election Board and other actors have advanced multiple rule changes: defining when emergency hand‑marked paper ballots may substitute for touchscreen ballots, requiring additional post‑poll hand counts in some scenarios, and adopting a “reasonable inquiry” standard before certification—moves described by supporters as strengthening chain‑of‑custody and by critics as opening the door to partisan delays [9] [2] [10]. The Brennan Center and other observers view some new certification rules as part of a national pattern that could empower election deniers to obstruct certification, while board members defending the rules say they clarify procedures to prevent missing ballots [4] [6].
5. Litigation, judicial rulings and the current legal landscape
Those rules have produced a flurry of litigation: trials and bench challenges tested whether the State Election Board exceeded its authority, and a Georgia judge invalidated seven new rules — including ones about hand counts and certain certification definitions — calling them illegal and void, a decision reflecting judicial resistance to administrative overreach in the post‑2020 regulatory scramble [5] [11]. State lawyers counter that challenges often focus on alleged intent or possible misuse rather than the text of the rules themselves, and litigation remains the primary avenue to settle whether reforms survive constitutional and statutory review [6] [11].
6. Competing narratives, hidden agendas and open evidentiary gaps
Public debate over tabulator tapes and certification is layered: election‑integrity advocates emphasize strict chain‑of‑custody and penalties for unsigned tapes, while election administrators emphasize training fixes and the legal obligation of counties to certify despite administrative errors [3] [8]. Media and partisan outlets have framed the Fulton tapes both as a “bombshell” and as a manageable bookkeeping failure; reporting shows the factual dispute over the scale and legal effect of the unsigned tapes, but available sources do not uniformly document chain‑of‑custody tampering beyond the missing signatures, so definitive claims about fraud versus error exceed the public record cited here [7] [8] [3].