Georgia Election Board rules ballots must be hand counted

You seem to assume their goal is an accurate count...

That's what makes this exceptionally stupid: ballots in Georgia are fully electronic.

You make your selections on a touchscreen voting machine. The machine records your selections. "Counting" is literally a matter of taking the output from the machine and telling a server to add up the totals.

The paper ballot is literally just a laser printer next to the machine that spits out a sheet of paper showing what the voter selected. The paper ballots are supposed to just be a backup in case there are problems with the machines.