OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled against allowing the state election board to enforce a set of controversial new election rules passed by allies of Donald Trump, denying Republicans’ request to revive the rules as early voting began in this critical battleground state.
This order marks a significant victory for Democrats and others who have filed numerous lawsuits against the rules, arguing that the board exceeded its authority in enacting them, CNN reported.
Among the seven rules is one that would require county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying them and another that would allow them to “examine all election-related documentation created during the conduct of elections before certification of results.”
Other proposed rules would have required officials to hand-count the number of ballots cast at each polling place on Election Day, expanded access for poll watchers, and mandated after-hours video surveillance of drop boxes at early voting locations, the outlet reported.
Georgia, which holds 16 electoral votes crucial for both Trump and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, has experienced high early voter turnout in the 2024 election. State election official Gabriel Sterling announced on Tuesday that 25% of the state’s active voters have already cast their ballots.
The unanimous decision from the conservative-majority court was technical in nature; the justices did not rule on the legality of the seven rules but instead declined to reverse a decision made by a lower-court judge last week that struck them down.
The order from Georgia’s highest court prevents the State Election Board from directing local election officials to implement the rules while a legal challenge is ongoing. This ensures that the rules will not impact this election cycle.
On Tuesday, the court also rejected a request from Republicans to expedite their review of the rules. The order stated that the court would consider the case “in the ordinary course.”
The case was initiated by the election advocacy group Eternal Vigilance Action. In siding with them last week, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled that the seven rules “are illegal, unconstitutional, and void,” concluding that the State Election Board lacked the legal authority to enact them in the first place.
The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party, which intervened in the case to defend the rules, appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court and subsequently requested that the justices intervene on an emergency basis to reinstate the rules.
“This court’s ruling on the stay issue effectively decides whether these new regulations will be in effect for early voting, and possibly for the 2024 election altogether,” attorneys for the Republicans told the court last week.
Scot Turner, a former GOP state lawmaker and the executive director of Eternal Vigilance Action, stated on Tuesday that the court victories from this week and last “should eliminate any doubt about the merits of our arguments” against the rules.
“I’m a Republican and this is a conservative policy organization. I do not like fighting my friends, but in this instance, fealty to the Georgia Constitution demands it,” he said in a statement. “True conservatives oppose empowering an administrative state that’s not directly accountable to voters. This is another win for principle that only the people’s elected constitutional officers have the power to make law.”
In a separate case challenging the ballot hand count rule, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney temporarily halted the requirement last week, ruling that the “administrative chaos” that it would cause “is entirely inconsistent with the obligations of our boards of elections (and the SEB) to ensure that our elections are fair, legal, and orderly.”
