Georgia Supreme Court rejects Republican appeal to restore controversial election rules

In a unanimous decision, the Georgia Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the Georgia Republican Party to reinstate seven last-minute rules passed by the Georgia State Board of Elections ahead of the Nov. 5 general election.

The decision upholds an earlier ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr., who struck down the new rules on Oct. 16, arguing they were “unlawful, unconstitutional and void” and that the State Electoral Board had exceeded its authority in passing them.

More: Georgia State Board of Elections Approves Controversial Rule Many Local Officials Oppose

The Republican Party of Georgia and the Republican National Committee filed an appeal with the Supreme Court shortly after Cox’s ruling was released, asking them to speed up their case and issue a decision before the election. The judges declined unanimously and wrote: “When the appeal is presented in this Court, it will proceed in the ordinary course.”

If enacted, the rules would have made it easier for local election officials to delay the certification of election results, required manual counting of all ballots on Election Day, expanded mandatory precincts observation of ballot boxes and mandatory video surveillance of ballot boxes, among other changes. Both voting rights groups and election officials opposed the rules, arguing that the last-minute changes could sow confusion and doubt in the election process, and that implementing the changes would violate Georgia election laws.

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Three members of the Republican-led board, Dr. Janice Johnston, former state Sen. Rick Jeffares and Janelle King, approved the rules in mid-September, despite warnings from Attorney General Chris Carr that the rules likely would not stand before the courts. . Carr’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The justices may eventually decide to reinstate the rules in the future, but that decision won’t come until after the 2024 election.

Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon condemned the decision, arguing that the rules were needed to restore faith in the integrity of Georgia’s elections.

“Oppose reasonable access for poll watchers, access to publicly available voter data, reasonable inquiries by election board members to confirm the integrity of the election, and confirm the machine count through voter book records and/or physical ballots is unimaginably stupid and damaging to public confidence in what is expected to be a hotly contested election,” he said in a statement. “It is extremely disappointing to observe yet another failure of our judicial system to quickly resolve critical issues about our election process.”

However, the issue did not fall clearly along party lines. Other Republicans, including former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner, founder of the conservative organization Eternal Vigilance Action and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, celebrated the court’s ruling.

“We just beat the fake appeal of @GaRepublicans,” Turner wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We will continue to fight for the Constitution, the separation of powers and traditional conservative values, not for unelected appointees to make a new law.”

The ACLU of Georgia, which helped represent the plaintiffs, also applauded the court’s decision.

“We welcome the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision to block the State Board of Elections’ illegal rules from going into effect,” ACLU of Georgia Executive Director Andrea Young said in a statement . “With this ruling, the Court maintains the status quo, refusing to allow the SEB to inject chaos and confusion into our democratic system. We’re excited about the record number of early voters in Georgia, and we’re glad that everyone can now focus on participating in this important election without disruption.”

The court has not yet announced when it will hear the case.

Maya Homan is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY focusing on Georgia politics. She’s @MayaHoman on X, formerly Twitter.

This article originally appeared in the Savannah Morning News: Republican bid to restore election rules struck down by high court