ELECTION INTEGRITYOfficials Voted Down a Controversial Georgia Election Rule, Saying It Violated the Law. Then a Similar Version Passed.
The rule, which was pushed by nationally prominent election deniers, only changed in minor ways between being voted down in May and approved in August. Those adjustments made it even less compliant with existing law, experts say.
Update, 27 August 2024: On Monday, the Democratic Party of Georgia and the Democratic National Committee, along with Democratic members of the Georgia Legislature and five metro Atlanta county election boards, filed a lawsuit against the Georgia Election Board challenging its new certification rules. “To remedy these harms and prevent chaos in November, this Court should follow decades of binding precedent,” the lawsuit stated, seeking a declaration that “election superintendents must certify election results.”
The members of the Georgia State Election Board could not have been clearer. Back in May, four of them voted down a proposed rule that would have given county election boards a new way to delay or reject election results, which could throw the November vote count into chaos.
“You run counter to both the federal and the state law,” said Ed Lindsey, a Republican board member and attorney who practices election law, to the woman who proposed the rule.
This rule “violates federal law. It also violates state law,” said Sara Tindall Ghazal, the board’s lone Democrat.
“It’s just not ready for prime time yet,” said the board chairman, noting that it needed more work to ensure its legality.
Even the lone board member supporting the rule, Janice Johnston, a retired obstetrician who had made unvalidated claims about falsified vote tallies in Fulton County, voted against it. The fifth board member did not vote. The board agreed that two members would work on improvements to the rule.
Three months later, a new draft of the rule came back for a vote. This time, it passed 3-2.
How much did the rule change between drafts? A review by ProPublica shows: hardly at all. In fact, election law experts told ProPublica that the small changes made the rule even less compliant with existing law.
The rule dramatically expands the authority of county officials overseeing the usually mundane task of certifying elections. The passage of it was enabled by nationally prominent election deniers and the Georgia Legislature. And the board members who passed it were cheered on by former President Donald Trump. It comes at a time when Trump and his allies are already calling into question the fairness of the elections process and making preparations to contest the results — and as Trump slips behind Vice President Kamala Harris in swing state polls.
It’s no coincidence that Trump allies are expanding their powers over certification in Georgia, a state where Biden beat Trump in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes.
