CNN
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County election officials in Georgia cannot delay or refuse to certify election results, a state judge ruled Monday in a blow to conservatives in the critical battleground state to gain the legal right to reject results based on suspicion of fraud or impropriety.
“Superintendents of elections in Georgia have a mandatory standard duty to certify election results,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in an 11-page ruling. “Consequently, no Superintendent of Elections (or member of the Board of Elections and Registration) shall under any circumstances refuse or refrain from certifying the results of an election.”
The case is one of the most closely watched controversies over electoral certificates in the crucial battleground state. A separate lawsuit filed by state and national Democrats challenging the state Board of Elections’ rule is still pending.
McBurney said in his ruling that local superintendents “have a duty to investigate concerns about improper accounting,” and that such concern “is not grounds for delaying or denying certification.”
The suit was filed by Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, who asked the judge to declare that her duties to certify election results are “not discretionary.”
If, as plaintiff asserts, election monitors, investigators, prosecutors, jury and judge are free to play jury and judge — because of unilateral error or fraud — and refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters will remain silent,” McBurney wrote. “Our Constitution and our election rules do not allow that to happen. ”
District election officials face a statutory deadline of November 12 this year to certify election results.
Fulton County has had its fair share of problems running its elections, and earlier this year the state Board of Elections censured the county and ordered an independent election watchdog because of issues surrounding the 2020 presidential election, including an incident in which one ballot was scanned twice. One of the 2020 recaps.
But detailed reviews of Georgia’s 2020 election — which included two machine vote counts and one hand count — revealed no evidence of widespread fraud. In the 2020 or subsequent elections, no evidence of tampering of tally sheets or tampering of drop box votes by couriers has emerged.
Both the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia intervened in the case — backed by Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign — to counter Adams’ arguments, celebrating Tuesday’s ruling as a major legal victory.
“In state after election, state after state, we have protected our elections from far-right Republicans trying to disrupt them, and Democrats are ready to stand up and know that every voter will count. Experts were clear that the 2020 election will be free, fair and secure, and Democrats will They ensure that 2024 will be the same,” the groups said in a joint statement.
Adams’ attorney did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
In his ruling, McBurney gave Adams a narrow victory, saying he had the right to request and access “election information” before the results were certified. But, the judge wrote, “delay in obtaining such information shall not be grounds for refusing to certify election results or refraining from doing so.”
McBurney also emphasized that concerns about potential election fraud or abuse can be raised by observers or others through post-certification court challenges, known as “election contests.”
“Essentially, electoral contests occur in an open court under a judge and public scrutiny,” he wrote. “Claims of fraud from one side are tested by the other side in that open court – instead of being quietly ‘adjudicated’ by an observer outside the public space, those voters are excluded from the final tally without due process. .”
This story has been updated with additional updates.
