Georgia Supreme Court Delivers Crucial Election Ruling
The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled against the state election board’s ability to enforce a series of contentious new election rules introduced by allies of Donald Trump. This decision rejects a request by Republicans to reinstate the rules as early voting continues in this pivotal battleground state.
This ruling is a notable win for Democrats and others who have launched multiple legal challenges, contending that the election board overstepped its bounds by implementing the regulations, as reported by CNN.
Among the seven rules in question is one that would mandate county election officials to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" into election results prior to certifying them. Another rule would grant them the authority to "examine all election-related documentation created during the conduct of elections before certification of results."
Other proposed rules would require a hand-count of ballots at each polling place on Election Day, expand the presence of poll watchers, and introduce after-hours video monitoring of drop boxes at early voting locations, according to the outlet.
With Georgia’s 16 electoral votes being critical for both Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, early voter turnout has surged. On Tuesday, Gabriel Sterling, a state election official, announced that 25% of active voters had already cast their ballots.
The conservative-majority court’s decision was procedural, rather than a direct ruling on the legality of the rules. The justices opted not to overturn a lower court decision from the previous week, which had blocked the rules.
As a result, Georgia’s highest court has temporarily halted the State Election Board from instructing local election officials to implement these rules while legal challenges continue, ensuring that the rules will not affect the current election cycle.
Additionally, the court denied a request from Republicans to fast-track their review of the case, stating that the matter would be considered "in the ordinary course."
The case was initiated by election advocacy group Eternal Vigilance Action. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled in their favor last week, declaring that the seven rules were "illegal, unconstitutional, and void" due to the State Election Board lacking the authority to implement them.
In response, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party, who intervened to defend the regulations, appealed to the state Supreme Court, seeking an emergency order to reinstate the rules.
“This court’s ruling on the stay issue effectively decides whether these new regulations will be in effect for early voting, and possibly for the 2024 election altogether,” Republican attorneys argued before the court last week.
Scot Turner, a former GOP state lawmaker and executive director of Eternal Vigilance Action, commented on Tuesday that the recent legal victories “should eliminate any doubt about the merits of our arguments” against the election rules.
“I’m a Republican, and this is a conservative policy organization. I do not like fighting my friends, but in this instance, fealty to the Georgia Constitution demands it,” Turner said in a statement. “True conservatives oppose empowering an administrative state that’s not directly accountable to voters. This is another win for principle, affirming that only the people’s elected constitutional officers have the power to make law.”
In a separate legal challenge to the ballot hand-count rule, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney issued a temporary halt last week, arguing that the "administrative chaos" it would cause "is entirely inconsistent with the obligations of our boards of elections (and the SEB) to ensure that our elections are fair, legal, and orderly."