Georgia Supreme Court rejects Republican attempt to quickly reinstate invalidated election rules
ATLANTA– Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an effort by national and state Republicans to immediately reinstate recently adopted election rules that a judge said were invalid.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled last week that the State Election Board did not have the authority to adopt the new rules, declaring them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” The Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Georgia appealed the ruling to Georgia’s highest court. They asked for it to be dealt with quickly and for the rules to be reinstated while the appeal was pending.
The Supreme Court unanimously denied the request for expedited hearing and declined to put Cox’s order on hold. The court’s order states that once the appeal is filed, it will “proceed in the normal course,” meaning it will likely take months before a ruling is reached.
The Republican majority of three people of the State Election Board, which was praised by former President Donald Trump at a rally in Atlanta in August, voted to adopt multiple rules in August and September over the objections of the board’s sole Democrat and nonpartisan chairman. The controversial new rules were met with resistance from the start, not least from local election officials concerned about changes so close to the general election. But Tuesday’s order could mark the end of the legal battle over election rules in this critical battleground state — at least until after the election.
Among the rules that Cox declared invalid were three that have received a lot of attention. You would need three polling places to count the ballots – not the votes – by hand once the polls close. The other two had to do with the process of certifying the county’s election results.
Democrats and some voting rights groups had expressed concerns about the rules could be used by Trump allies to delay or deny certification or election results, or to cast doubt on the results if the former president loses the presidential election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
While some prominent Republicans in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have criticized the flurry of last-minute rules implemented by the State Election Board, the state and national Republican parties have thrown their support behind them. They say the rules promote transparency and accountability in state elections.
Cox’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, an organization founded and led by former state Rep. Scot Turner, a Republican. The lawsuit argued that the State Election Board exceeded its authority by adopting the seven rules. In addition to declaring the rules invalid, he ordered the state election board to immediately notify all state and local election officials that the rules are null and void and should not be followed.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Turner said he was happy for election workers, who will not need to be trained on the new election rules with just two weeks to go before Election Day. Many provincial election officials had expressed concerns about the tight timeline for implementing the rules, saying they risked causing confusion among poll workers and undermining public confidence in election results.
“I hate fighting my friends,” Turner said. “It is unfortunate that the Republican Party has apparently lost their affection for defending constitutional principles such as the separation of powers. But I will not be deterred and we will keep fighting.”
Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon called the objections to the new rules “inconceivably stupid and damaging to public confidence in what is expected to be a closely contested election.”
“It is extremely disappointing to see yet another failure by our justice system to quickly resolve critical questions about our election process,” he wrote in a statement.
The CEO of Fair Fight, an organization founded by former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, called Tuesday’s order “a huge victory for Georgia voters and the rule of law.”
“These rules are part of a larger election denier plot to undermine confidence in our elections, but once again the courts have affirmed that the rule of law will prevail,” Lauren Groh-Wargo said in a statement. “This is a crucial victory in the ongoing fight to protect independent elections.”
In addition to Cox’s ruling, an earlier ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in a separate case had already temporarily blocked the hand counting rule. McBurney blocked the rule while considering the merits of that case. He said it was too close to the general election and implementing it at this point would cause chaos.
Two other new rules that Cox declared invalid were adopted by the state election board in August and have to do with certification. One provides a definition of certification that includes: requiring provincial officials to conduct a “reasonable investigation.” before results are certified, but it doesn’t specify what that means. The other includes language allowing county election officials to “examine any election-related documentation created during the conduct of the election.”
The other rules that Cox said are illegal and unconstitutional are rules that:
— Require anyone personally delivering an absentee ballot to provide a signature and photo identification.
– Require video surveillance and recording of ballot boxes after the polls close during early voting.
– Expand mandatory designated areas for partisan poll workers to stand at tabulation centers.
— Require daily public updates of the number of votes cast during early voting.