County election boards in Georgia have to certify election results, a state judge ruled on Tuesday, rejecting arguments that the decision be left to each board's discretion.
Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney specifically ruled against Julie Adams, a Fulton County election board member who refused to certify primary election results this spring after she was denied further access to election data.
“If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” McBurney wrote in his decision. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”
Earlier this year, the Georgia State Election Board, dominated by loyalists to former President Donald Trump, passed a number of controversial rules intended to give county election boards discretionary power in certifying election results. One rule says election officials can conduct a “reasonable inquiry," left undefined, before certifying election results; another requires three separate election workers to hand count paper ballots in each of Georgia’s precincts.
The two rules garnered significant backlash from both Democrats and Republicans, who fear the changes not only frame election certification as optional, but could allow misinformation to spread during any delay in certification.
McBurney’s ruling could bring much needed clarity to the battleground state. Georgia law requires election boards to certify election by a Nov. 12 deadline.
“While the superintendent must investigate concerns about miscounts and must report those concerns to a prosecutor if they persist after she investigates, the existence of those concerns, those doubts, and those worries is not cause to delay or decline certification,” McBurney wrote.
