A Georgia judge ruled that county election board members cannot block the certification of votes based on suspicions of fraud just weeks before the 2024 presidential election.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled on Wednesday that seven new election rules recently passed by the State Election Board are “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.” The measures had been a controversial subject between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris's surrogates in the battleground state.
The rules, passed last month in a 3-2 vote by the Republican majority on the elections board, had received much attention. One of them requires that the number of ballots be hand-counted after polls closed on Election Day after being machine tabulated to ensure the totals match. Two others stated were about the certification of election results.
Cox argued that the rules were “unsupported by Georgia’s Election Code and are in fact contrary to the Election Code” and that the State Election Board did not have authority to pass them. He also blocked requirements for new signatures and photo IDs for people dropping off absentee ballots for others.
His ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, which argued that the State Election Board abused its authority to pass the rules.
The organization, founded by former Republican state legislator Scot Turner, said it was a “complete and total victory for the Constitution of the United States.”
“These rules were opposed by citizens that are Republican, as well as Democrats and independents. This is not about party. It’s about doing what’s constitutional and reestablishing separation of powers, and that’s something that every conservative in this country should be concerned with and support,” Turner said.
In a separate ruling on Tuesday night, it was temporarily blocked, with Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney stating he had no issue with the rule’s intent. However, he argued it would be unwarranted to implement this close to the election.
If country election board members were “free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” McBurney wrote in his ruling. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”
Critics say the new measures would slow down the election night results, while supporters argue that hand-counting the voters would take just a few extra minutes— not hours.