Georgia judge blocks election rule requiring hand counting of ballots

After Georgia voters began heading to the polls Tuesday for the first day of early voting in the state, a judge enjoined election officials from moving forward with a controversial new rule that would require the hand counting of ballots when polls close on Nov. 5. 

Judge Robert McBurney called the rule "too much, too late."

The judge expressed concern that the "11th-and-one-half hour implementation of the hand count rule" would lessen public confidence in the election results. Thousands of poll workers would be handling and counting ballots "in a manner unknown and untested in the era of ballot scanning devices," without time for uniform training, McBurney wrote.