Georgia counties must certify election results, judge rules
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People arrive to cast their votes in Atlanta on Oct. 15, the first day of early voting. Photo: Megan Varner/Getty Images
Georgia county election officials can't delay or decline to certify election results based on suspicions of fraud, error or abuse, a judge ruled Monday, just weeks before the November election.
Why it matters: The decision is a blow to conservatives' efforts in the battleground state to create a framework that election deniers could use to delay the certification of the upcoming presidential election results.
Zoom in: Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in an 11-page ruling that elections officials have a "mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results."
- "Consequently, 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," he added.
- Concerns about fraud or systemic errors should be noted and reported to the appropriate authorities, but they are "not a basis" to decline to certify results, he said in a footnote of the ruling.
The big picture: Georgia's State Election Board has passed a series of bureaucratic rule changes in recent months with a 3-2 Republican majority.
- MAGA and GOP activists have helped push the Republican appointees to approve what they market as common-sense measures — subtle fixes they claim will make elections more secure, Axios' Thomas Wheatley reports.
- But the new rules could help cast doubt and suspicion on the democratic process as they did in 2020, leaving room to delay the certification of next month's election results.
What he's saying: "If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, 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 Monday's ruling.
- "Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen," he added.
Context: The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, who refused to join the board in certifying the results of two primaries earlier this year.
- She alleged in the suit that she was denied the right to examine election records for irregularities.
But Adams claimed Monday's ruling was a win since it gave her the right to seek documents that would allow her to check the security of elections, per the Washington Post.
- "Having access to the entire election process will allow every board member to know and have confidence in the true and accurate results before the time for certification," Adams said in a written statement to the Post.
Go deeper: Democrats sue Georgia election board over new vote count rule
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional context.
