Georgia Supreme Court Smacks Down GOP Election Rules

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday shot down the Republican National Committee’s attempt to reinstate controversial election rules in the crucial swing state.
The RNC’s legal effort was in direct response to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, who just last week invalidated several rules that the Georgia Election Board’s Republican-majority panel had approved in August and September. The judge deemed multiple rules unconstitutional and said the board had overstepped its authority because only the state’s General Assembly can set laws for how elections are governed.
Among the rules Cox invalidated was a vaguely defined “reasonable inquiry” rule, which allowed broad probes into contested election results that critics said could gum up the vote certification process. He also struck down a rule mandating a manual hand count of ballots — not a vote tally, but merely a hand count of how many ballots had been turned in — on election night, when poll workers are already overburdened.
Cox also invalidated a rule expanding the area where partisan poll watchers can observe voters, as well as one that said anyone who hand-delivers an absentee ballot for someone else must show their ID and provide a signature. He similarly rejected a rule that would have surveilled ballot drop boxes after hours during the state’s early voting period. He also invalidated a rule that would have mandated a daily report of votes cast during the early voting period.
Early voting has already begun in Georgia.
Once Cox ordered the board to immediately remove the new rules and tell state and local election officials to disregard them, the RNC filed a motion for an appeal.
The Georgia Supreme Court responded with a one-page order published Tuesday that stops the RNC’s attempt to quickly raise the issue and dashes all hope that the new rules will take effect in time for this year’s presidential election. (The RNC can pursue an appeal later if it chooses.)
The initial lawsuit against the RNC over the new election rules was brought by Eternal Vigilance Action Inc., a group founded by former Georgia state Rep. Scot Turner (R) and Republican James Hall, an election board member in Georgia’s Chatham County.
Turner posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, saying the court’s decision was “a victory for the Constitution and the principle of separation of powers.”
“Every conservative should see this a win and a significant pushback on an unelected board making law,” Turner said.
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Last week, when he first announced his plan to appeal Cox’s ruling, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley called the decision “the very worst of judicial activism.”
In a separate lawsuit over the election board’s new rules brought by plaintiffs including the Democratic Party, as HuffPost reported, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled last week that election board officials cannot “play investigator, prosecutor, jury and judge” by refusing to certify election results based on their singular suspicions of fraud.
McBurney’s decision rejected an effort to launch so-called reasonable inquiries led by Georgia Republican Julie Adams, a Fulton County election board member who’s also part of the pro-Trump election denialist group known as the Election Integrity Network.
McBurney also temporarily blocked a hand-count rule in Georgia from going into effect, writing that the impact left over from the 2020 election served as a crucial reminder.
“This election season is fraught; memories of January 6 have not faded away, regardless of one’s view of that date’s fame or infamy,” McBurney wrote. “Anything that adds uncertainty and disorder to the electoral process disserves the public.”