Georgia judge blocks ballot counting rule and says county officials must certify election results
World
The rulings are victories for Democrats, liberal voting rights groups and some legal experts
A judge has blocked a new rule that requires Georgia Election Day ballots to be counted by hand after the close of voting. The ruling came a day after the same judge ruled that county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law.
The rulings are victories for Democrats, liberal voting rights groups and some legal experts who have raised concerns that Donald Trump’s allies could refuse to certify the results if the former president loses to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in next month’s presidential election. They have also argued that new rules enacted by the Trump-endorsed majority on the State Election Board could be used to stop or delay certification and to undermine public confidence in the results.
The State Election Board last month passed the rule requiring that three poll workers each count the paper ballots — not votes — by hand after the polls close. The county election board in Cobb County, in Atlanta’s suburbs, had filed a lawsuit seeking to have a judge declare that rule and five others recently passed by the state board invalid, saying they exceed the state board’s authority, weren’t adopted in compliance with the law and are unreasonable.
In a ruling late Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote, that the hand count rule “is too much, too late” and blocked its enforcement while he considers the merits of the case.
McBurney on Monday had ruled in a separate case that “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.” While they are entitled to inspect the conduct of an election and to review related documents, he wrote, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so.”
Georgia law says county election superintendents — generally multimember boards — “shall” certify election results by 5 p.m. on the Monday after an election, or the Tuesday if Monday is a holiday as it is this year.
