A state judge on Wednesday blocked seven rule changes passed in recent months by the pro-Trump majority on the Georgia State Election Board, finding the board “lacked constitutional authority” to enact them.
It was the third ruling in two days that dealt a blow to election deniers in the state. On Tuesday, a different judge in Fulton County, Robert McBurney, held that county election boards must certify election rules and also blocked a new rule requiring a hand count of ballots on Election Night for the 2024 election, which election officials feared could delay vote counts and sow distrust in the election process.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox went further in Wednesday’s ruling, permanently blocking the hand count requirement, along with other new rules requiring counties to undertake a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results and giving county officials access to “all election-related documentation.” Democrats, voting rights groups, and even some Republicans feared that these rules could be used by GOP county officials as a pretext not to certify the election results if Vice President Kamala Harris carried the state. Cox also blocked rules expanding the areas where partisan poll watchers can monitor the vote counting process and new signature and ID requirements for dropping off an absentee ballot at a drop box. Collectively, Cox found that the state board violated the Georgia Constitution and usurped the legislature’s power to set election procedures.
The rule changes were challenged by a former Republican state legislator and a Republican board member in Chatham County. They represented increasing Republican opposition to the actions of the election board’s three MAGA-aligned members, who Trump praised as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory” during a rally in August.
The court decisions blocking the board’s new rules are an emphatic setback for the election denial movement in one of the country’s most important battleground states. However, the elevation of 2020 skeptics to the board—and their subsequent actions—have gone a long way toward legitimizing conspiracy theories in the state. “The SEB’s work is already done,” Democratic state senator Jason Esteves wrote on X Tuesday. “They’ve laid the groundwork for MAGA to doubt and challenge the election in Georgia.”
