Georgia's Supreme Court rejects the reintroduction of controversial electoral rules

Update: On June 10th, Georgia's Supreme Court decided four of the seven rules that were adopted by the election of the state of Georgia. This required the hand count of ballot papers, whereby the election committees of the district must make an “appropriate examination” before the results are to be confirmed that “examine all election documentation” and examined the selection of other elections. A rule that requires video surveillance of drop boxes outside of the voting times was confirmed. Since these five rules imply the right, submit a ballot or count it, the court said that the individual voters had to question them. The court did not decide the validity of the two remaining rules – the total number of votes that are reported daily and the observation observers expanded, and found that they were not involved in the rights of the voters and whether a member of the district board was brought to court for further examination. The plaintiffs of the voting right group were not missing to question a rule, the court said.

The Supreme Court of Georgia's Supreme Court presented a judgment before the lower court last week, in which several controversial new electoral rules are “illegal, unconstitutional and void”.

In the past few months, the GOP-controlled election committee of the state of Georgia has passed several rules, the critics, including the Republican Foreign Minister in Georgia, that would make elections less free and fair. In the Republican National Committee against Eternal Wake Action Action, the High Court refused to create rules that made the election certification that made the number of ballot papers, made the drop boxes more difficult and expanded the role of the voting observers.

In the case of a republican former legislator of the state of Georgia and his conservative election reform-community-proof organizations, the plaintiffs argued that the rules with the state's right to vote had come into conflict. A legal judge agreed and blocked the rules.

The Republican National Committee, which was intervened to support the rules in the lawsuit, appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The RNC urged the court to be illustrated that the provisions are blocked while there was an appeal procedure and found that a regular schedule would not allow a decision before the election day in order to obtain an accelerated appeal.

In a one -sided order, the High Court refused to raise the block, and decelerated it. This means that the order is arranged and the rules do not come into force this year.

Why is rule important?

Democracy groups celebrated the decision. The rules would have changed the established protocols of a heavily regulated and specific voting process with many integrated checks-a few weeks before a federal election.

The most controversial were rules that affected the election certification. On the one hand, they allowed County Boards to carry out an “reasonable examination” in the voices of voices and the lines before certification. In addition, a member of the district board could “investigate all the dwarf -related documentation that was created during the elections before the certification of results”.

In short, they encouraged the district officials to certify or delay the certification or delay in certification of the certification of elections that certify the results of state law.

State law makes it clear that the responsibility of the certification officers is limited and the role of the role of civil servants is not discretionary. The certification must be completed within a certain period of time, which is set according to state law. It takes place after the survey workers and the local election officers have already carried out a strict, multi -stage procedure in order to vote for the votes, to check in the coordination amount after discrepancies and to ensure that the results are correct.

Until civil servants certify the results, the time has been passed for an “appropriate request”. At this point, the only duty of the certified task is to write off the sole task of completing the voting counting process. It is also not time to examine or burden legal questions such as the allegations of voter fraud. Instead, these questions must be left to the law enforcement authorities and courts who hear the challenges after the elections.

The requirement that the handouts are counted by hand was also made particularly worrying by democracy groups. According to this rule, the survey devices had been obliged to remove the machine -printed ballot papers from their sealed box after the surveys were closed to confirm that their counts match the machine amounts.

New and sensitive procedures such as manual voting lists would open several additional people compared to the current protocol and handle balls. The training of these additional workers so close to the elections would be a challenge. The hand count also increases the potential for abuse or fraud as well as unfounded allegations of inappropriate behaviors. Simply put, critics say that the rules – the workers and state officials argue, unnecessarily – would require a comprehensive additional work for already busy election workers without the public beneficial.

There were also concerns that some of the rules could suppress the vote. For example, the requirement that those who return an absence on certain dropbox locations to offer a signature, identification and proof of their relationship to everyone for whom they drop a ballot paper would have unnecessarily loaded voters.

What's next in the conflict about election processes in Georgia?

The complaint in the eternal vigilance lawsuit will take place according to a normal schedule, which means that the Supreme Court will fully take into account the contestation of the rules in the coming months. It is still possible that the court finally allow the rules to come into force before the next election cycle.

At least six additional lawsuits that question the new rules of the State Board of Directors are still pending. Some of those who have been submitted by the Democratic National Committee and members of the registration and election administrations of several district districts, remind you of the arguments of the eternal vigilance plaintiffs who claim that the now blocked certification and the hand count rules are illegal.

A judge in one of these cases, submitted by the Cobb County Board of Elections, also blocked the enforcement of the hand count rule at the beginning of this month and called it “too much, too late”.

At the beginning of this month, the same judge made it clear in separate legal disputes that the election manager of the election must follow the law and protocol and have the elections certified within the prescribed time. (This decision, which does not directly include the new rules, has now been appealed.)

The complaint of the Cobb County also questions the so -called reconciliation rules, according to which district officials publicly publish a difference between the number of ballot papers submitted from each district and the number of people from each district to check in. There could be discrepancies if, for example, a voter checked and then decided not to give up a ballot. The plaintiffs say that the rules could further delay the certification and undermine the trust in exact results. A decision about this rule will soon be expected.

In August, former President Donald Trump called the three Republican members of the board who passed the demanding rules, “Pitbulls who fought for honesty, transparency and victory”. This statement has fueled the controversy about the rules by raising questions about whether the changes were not properly party -political motivations. It is expected that election workers, including those who belong to a political party, fulfill their duties in a strictly impartial way.

The Brennan Center for Justice entered a comment before accepting the rules and asked the board not to take over it. Later it submitted an amicus letter in Adams against Fulton County Board of Elections and registration, whereby the case with certification, but not on the new rules, was explained that the certification is mandatory and the attempts to delay the certification are the latest tactics of the election movement movement.

Erin Geiger Smith is a writer and editor in the Brennan Center. Leah Tulin of the Brennan Center researched for this article.

Proposed quote: Erin Geiger Smith, Supreme Court of Georgia, rejects the following to reintroduce controversial electoral rules.