ATLANTA– A judge in Georgia has ruled that county election officials must certify election results within the deadline set by law and cannot exclude any group of votes from certification, even if they suspect error or fraud.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that “no election inspector (or member of an election and registration board) may, under any circumstance, refuse to certify or recuse from certifying the results of an election.” While they have the right to inspect the conduct of an election and review related documents, he wrote, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to declare or abstaining from announcing the election results.”
Georgia law says county election inspectors, who are multi-member in most counties, will “certify” election results by 5 p.m. on the Monday after the election — or on Tuesday if Monday is a holiday, as it is this year.
The ruling comes as early voting began in Georgia on Tuesday.
Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Elections, had asked the judge to declare that her duties as a member of the Board of Elections were discretionary and that she is entitled to “full access” to “election materials.”
Long an administrative task that attracted little attention, certification of election results has become politicized since then-President Donald Trump attempted to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 general election. Republicans in several swing states, including Adams, refused to release the election results earlier this year and some have filed suit to avoid being forced to sign the election results.
Adams’ suitbacked by the Trump-affiliated America First Policy Institute, states that members of the county election board have the discretion to reject the certification. In court earlier this month, her lawyers also argued that county election officials could certify the results without including ballots that appear to have problems, alleviating the concerns of a board member who might otherwise vote not to certify.
Judge McBurney wrote that nothing in Georgia law gives county election officials the authority to determine whether fraud has occurred or what to do about it. Instead, he wrote, the law says that a county election official’s “concerns about fraud or systematic errors should be noted and shared with appropriate authorities, but they do not provide a basis for a superintendent to refuse to testify.” ”