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Allies of former President Donald Trump who control the Georgia state election board approved a controversial new rule Friday that requires counties to hand-count ballots cast on Election Day, despite objections from both election officials and poll workers.

The vote was 3-2, with Trump’s three allies supporting the measure while a Democratic and Republican board member strongly opposed it, calling it an additional step that could delay the outcome of the presidential election in the crucial state.

The new manual counting rule requires counties to manually count the number of ballots at a polling place to ensure that it matches the number of ballots counted by voting machines. The hand counters do not count how many votes each candidate received — that is what the machines do.

The office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, previously warned the GOP-run administration that the move would likely be illegal because state law does not allow local election workers to hand-count ballots before the votes are officially counted.

“These proposed rules are not bound by law and are therefore likely to be precisely the type of unauthorized legislation that agencies cannot implement,” his office wrote.

Carr’s office also warned the administration that it might be too close to the election to make these changes — and that judges could even block them because of longstanding precedents that favor maintaining the status quo on the eve of the election.

“The Council runs a significant risk of infringing on the General Assembly’s constitutional right to make law. If such an infringement occurs, the Council’s rule is likely to be invalidated if challenged,” Elizabeth Young, a senior attorney in Carr’s office, said in the letter Thursday, warning the Council that it could be overstepping its authority.

The findings echo the concerns of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who has previously called the Republican-dominated administration a “mess.”

“We’re too close to the election,” Raffensperger, a Republican, told CNN on Thursday. “We’ve got 50 days to go before we have our elections. We’re actually three weeks away from the start of early voting, and it’s just too late in the cycle.”

The electoral college overhaul in one of the most crucial states for 2024 shows how some Republicans who cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election are now playing a prominent role in determining election rules and, in some areas, overseeing elections.

The board also adopted a new rule that gives polling station observers greater access to the election process, including where votes are counted.

The new polling place rule was proposed by Julie Adams, a conservative Georgia woman known for spreading conspiracy theories about election workers who now serves on the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections in Georgia’s largest county.

The state Attorney General’s Office previously said the poll watcher rule “is intended to expand the number of locations where poll watchers can be assigned, beyond those listed in the law,” and therefore would likely be overturned if challenged in court.

Janelle King, a member of the state Election Board and one of three Republican members of the Board who praised Trump last month, told reporters before the meeting that the changes are necessary.

“Unfortunately, a few bad apples, a few miscounts here and there, a few double counts, tend to overshadow the great work that many of our election commission offices do over and over again,” King said. “So this is a very difficult position: Do we maintain the status quo because it’s easier or do we make some adjustments so we can get better?”

After the vote, the Democratic and Republican national committees reacted predictably with disapproval and praise, respectively.

“We commend the members of the Georgia Election Board for adopting these critical rules and continuing to fight for transparency and accuracy in Georgia elections,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley.

DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison said, “This is nothing more than a last-minute attempt by Donald Trump and his pit bulls to delay the counting of votes so they can attack and undermine any result they don’t like,” referring to Trump’s previous comments praising GOP board members.

Georgia election officials and independent voting experts warned that the new requirement for hand counting could place an enormous burden on already stretched county polling stations and that the slower results could fuel confusion and misinformation.

“The vast majority of election officials who have contacted me are opposed to this,” State Election Board Chairman John Fervier, an independent who opposed the measure, said before the vote. “I think it’s too close to the election. … And more importantly, I don’t think it’s supported in the law at all.”

The meeting spiraled out of control even before the vote. Verbal barrages broke out between board members and citizens in attendance, accusing Trump of using the new hand-counting rules to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results if he lost Georgia again.

“Everyone I’ve heard personally is against it,” Democratic House Speaker Sara Tindall Ghazal said during a call with King.

An attorney for Raffensperger sent a scathing two-page letter to the state election board earlier this week, warning that new rules are impossible because “many poll workers have already completed their required training.”

Early voting in Georgia begins on October 15. The earliest possible date the new rules could take effect if passed is October 14, just 22 days before the general election.

The electoral board was once led by Georgia’s secretary of state. But after 2020, Trump fought to overturn his loss in the Peach State by pressuring Raffensperger to “find” the thousands of votes Trump needed to win. Raffensperger refused, and in the aftermath, the GOP-led state legislature removed the secretary from the board.

The Georgia State Election Board does not certify the results of any election. But it makes rules that guide election administrators and the local boards that certify the results before they are sent to the secretary of state and then to the governor. The State Election Board also investigates election irregularities.

Meanwhile, the board has tabled a proposal that would require election workers to put special markings on mail-in ballots and add additional traceability for mail-in votes.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Sara Murray and Mounira Elsamra contributed to this report.