ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by national and state Republicans to immediately reinstate recently passed election rules that a judge had ruled were invalid.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox last week ruled that the State Election Board didn’t have the authority to adopt the new rules, and declared them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party had appealed that ruling to Georgia’s highest court. They asked that it be handled in an expedited manner and for the rules to be reinstated while the appeal was pending.
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The Supreme Court unanimously declined the request for expedited handling and declined to put Cox's order on hold. The court's order says that once the appeal is docketed it will “proceed in the ordinary course,” which means it will likely take months before there's a ruling.
The three-person Republican majority on the State Election Board, which was praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally in Atlanta in August, voted to adopt multiple rules in August and September over the objections of the board’s lone Democrat and the nonpartisan chair. The controversial new rules met resistance from the start, not least from local election officials who worried about changes so close to the general election. But Tuesday's order may mark the end of the legal fight over election rules in this critical battleground state — at least until after the election.
The rules that Cox declared invalid included three that have gotten a lot of attention. One would require three poll workers to count ballots — not votes — by hand once polls close. The other two had to do with the process to certify county election results.
Democrats and some voting rights groups had raised concerns that the rules could be used by allies of Trump to slow or deny certification or election results, or to cast doubt on 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 the State Election Board introduced, the state and national Republican parties have been supportive. They have said the rules promote transparency and accountability in the state’s 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 suit argued that the State Election Board overstepped its authority in adopting the seven rules. In addition to invalidating the rules, he ordered the State Election Board to immediately inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Turner said he was glad for the election workers, who will not have to be trained on new election rules with just two weeks to go before Election Day. Many county election officials had expressed concern over the tight timeline for implementing the rules, saying they risked causing confusion for poll workers and undermining public confidence in the election results.
“I hate fighting my friends," Turner said. "It’s unfortunate that the Republican Party has apparently lost their affection for defending constitutional principles like separation of powers. But I’m undeterred and we will continue to fight.”
Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon called objections to the new rules “unimaginably stupid and damaging to public confidence in what is expected to be a closely contested election.”
“It is supremely disappointing to observe yet another failure of our judicial system to expeditiously resolve critical questions about our elections 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 win 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 critical victory in the ongoing fight to protect independent elections.”
In addition to Cox's ruling, an earlier ruling from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in a separate case had already temporarily blocked the hand-count rule. McBurney blocked the rule while he considers the merits of that case, saying it was too close to the general election and that implementing it at this point would cause chaos.
Two other new rules that Cox invalidated were passed by the State Election Board in August and have to do with certification. One provides a definition of certification that includes requiring county officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying results, but it does not specify what that means. The other includes language allowing county election officials “to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.”
The other rules that Cox said are illegal and unconstitutional are ones that:
— Require someone delivering an absentee ballot in person to provide a signature and photo ID.
— Demand video surveillance and recording of ballot drop boxes after polls close during early voting.
— Expand the mandatory designated areas where partisan poll watchers can stand at tabulation centers.
— Require daily public updates of the number of votes cast during early voting.