Election officials in Georgia approved a new rule Thursday that changes the standard for how much an oval needs to be filled in on an absentee ballot to count as a vote.
Under the rule, passed by the State Election Board in a 3-1 vote, scanners will be changed to tabulate all selections where at least 20% of a bubble is filled in. If 10% or less is filled in, it won’t count as a vote. Marks that fill in between 10-20% will be flagged for manual review.
The change will be slightly more forgiving than the factory setting for the Dominion Voting Systems scanners, which required 35% of an oval be filled to count as a vote and threw out anything where less than 12% was marked, news outlets report.
The scanners are being used for the first time this year as part of the state’s new voting system, which cost more than $100 million.
The change comes after complaints surfaced after the state’s June 9 primaries that some votes, particularly those where voters marked a selection with a check mark or an X, were not picked up by scanners despite the intent being clear.
