Dems Mount Legal Challenge Against Trump-Backed Georgia Election Board’s New Rules

Democrats are suing to block a series of new rules recently enacted by the Trump-endorsed Georgia State Election Board. 

The lawsuit was filed in Fulton County on Monday by the Democratic National Committee, the Georgia Democratic Party and Democratic members of several election boards. The plaintiffs are asking the court to pause enforcement of the rules and to declare that, according to Georgia law, election board members do not have the power to delay certification or to not certify results at all. 

“According to their drafters, these rules rest on the assumption that certification of election results by a county board is discretionary and subject to free-ranging inquiry that may delay certification or foreclose it entirely,” the lawsuit states. “But that is not the law in Georgia. Rather, election officials have a non-discretionary duty to certify results by 5 p.m. six days after election day. Allegations of fraud or election misconduct are then resolved by the courts in properly filed challenges, not by county boards in the counting process.”

At the heart of the legal challenge are two new rules that were both passed by the Georgia Election Board — which has three Trump-backed, election-denying members — earlier this month.

The first rule, which passed on August 6, gives the election board the authority to not certify election results until a “reasonable inquiry” into any discrepancies in the voting process at the county level has been conducted. And, as previously reported by TPM, the full text of the new rule does not ever clearly define what is meant by a “reasonable inquiry.”

The ambiguity in the rule, experts told TPM, is deliberate — a way to give election deniers even more power to potentially delay certification based on false voter fraud claims. 

“It has potential to allow those election deniers who have made it onto seats on election boards in our state to hold up a perfectly viable election to hold that up and to keep it from moving forward as pace as it should,” Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director of the nonpartisan New Georgia Project told TPM. 

The second rule, which passed on August 19, gives election board members the authority “to examine all election-related documentation before certifying the results.” The rule also states that if there is a discrepancy between the ballot count and the number of voters, the board must investigate the discrepancy before the election can be certified. Critics of the rule say it gives election deniers an opportunity to disrupt the certification process with baseless claims of irregularities or voter fraud, as TPM has previously reported. 

An association of election administrators, the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials (GAVREO) pushed back on these new rules last week, stating that it is “gravely concerned that dramatic changes at this stage will disrupt the preparation and training processes already in motion.” And GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger described the “11th hour” changes as “misguided” and as having the potential to create “chaos.”

Election integrity consultant David Levine described the rule  as merely “another effort to cast doubt on a process that is largely right, accurate and verifiable,” he told TPM.

Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel at the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, described these efforts by the Georgia Election Board as an attempt to sow seeds of distrust in the election system. 

“It’s not really just about missing the county and state deadlines,” he said, “it’s also about just generally sowing distrust and undermining public perceptions of the validity of the election in particular states, in particular counties, to serve as a pretext for disputing the results down the line.”