A Georgia judge has declared seven new election rules recently passed by the state Board of Elections “unlawful, unconstitutional and void.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox issued the order Wednesday after holding a hearing on challenges to the rules. Cox drew attention to three of the invalidated provisions — one requiring hand-counting of votes after the polls are closed and two relating to the certification of election results.
Cox found that the rules “are not supported by Georgia’s Election Code and are actually inconsistent with the election rules.” He also wrote that the State Election Board has no authority to implement them. Direct the Board to immediately remove these rules and notify all state and local election officials that the rules are invalid and should not be followed.
The Associated Press reached out to attorneys for the state Board of Elections and three Republicans who supported the rules for comment on the judge’s ruling. They can appeal but Election Day is less than three weeks away.
The State Election Board is in control Three Republicans Former President Donald Trump has endorsed and enacted several rules in recent months dealing with the post-vote process. Trump lost Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, but claimed without evidence that widespread fraud cost him the victory in the state.
Democratic Party OrganisationsLocal Election Officers and Led by a team A former Republican state lawmaker has filed at least half a dozen lawsuits over the rules. Democrats, voting rights groups, and some legal experts have raised concerns Some of the rules could be used by Trump allies to delay or avoid certification or cast doubt on the results if he loses next month’s presidential election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Cox’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, founded and led by former Republican state Rep. Scott Turner. The body argued that the state election commission had exceeded its authority in adopting the rules.
Reached by phone Wednesday evening, Turner said he was “delighted with the win.”
“This is a complete and utter victory for the Constitution of the United States,” he said. “These rules were opposed by Republicans and Democrats and independents. It’s not about party. It’s about doing what’s constitutional and restoring the separation of powers, and that’s something every conservative in this country should care about and support.”
A new rule blocked by the judge would have required three separate poll workers to count the number of Election Day ballots by hand to ensure that the number of paper ballots matched the electronic count in scanners, check-in computers and voting machines.
Georgia voters make choices on a touchscreen voting machine that prints a piece of paper with a human-readable list of the voter’s preferences and a QR code. That is the ballot paper that the voter places in the scanner to register their votes. Hand counting will be paper votes – not votes.
Critics, including several county election officials, argued that hand counting would slow down the reporting of election results and put an extra burden on poll workers at the end of an already long day. They also said that there was not enough time to train election workers.
Supporters of the regime argued that the count would take additional minutes, not hours. They noted that the scanner memory cards with the vote count can be sent to central tabulation centers in each district and once the hand counting is done, there will be no delay in reporting the results.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Tuesday Hand count prevented He is considering legal qualifications for the November election. He said the hand count may eventually prove to be a good policy, but it is now too close to the general election to implement it.
Cox wrote that the provision is “nowhere authorized” by Georgia statutes, which “prohibit the duties of election officials after the polls are closed. Counting hands is not among them.
Two other new rules that invalidated Cox were passed by the state Board of Elections in August and have to do with certification. One of these provides a definition of certification The district authorities must conduct a “reasonable enquiry”. Before certifying the results, but not specifying what that means. Another one Includes language Allows district election officials to “inspect all election-related documents generated during the conduct of the election.”
Supporters He argued that those rules were necessary District election officials must confirm the accuracy of the vote totals before signing them. Critics said it could be used to delay or deny certification.
Cox wrote that the first certification provision is not part of Georgia law and “adds an additional and undefined step to the certification process,” so it is “contrary to and unsupported by Georgia law,” making it “invalid and unenforceable.” The second provision is “in direct conflict” with Georgia law, he wrote, “which provides for the time, manner and manner in which election-related documents must be prepared and maintained.”
Other provisions Cox said were illegal and unconstitutional: requiring an in-person caster of an absentee ballot to provide a signature and photo identification; Early voting requires video surveillance and recording of ballot boxes after polling; expanding mandatory designated areas where partisan poll watchers can stand at tabling centers; A daily public update of the number of votes cast during early voting is required.
At least half a dozen lawsuits have been filed challenging some or all of the new rules. The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia joined the two lawsuits and others. Election boards in some districts and individual election officials in others.
Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensburger, the state’s top elections official, Said The lateness of the rules causes confusion for voters and poll workers and undermines confidence in election results. An District Election Officers Association And asked the state board to put the brakes on the new rules.
In a memo last month, the office of state Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, warned that some of the provisions conflict with existing law.
