Republicans appeal Georgia judge’s ruling striking down controversial new election rules
State and national Republicans on Thursday appealed a Georgia judge’s ruling striking down a slate of controversial new election rules passed by Donald Trump allies, including two related to the state’s election certification process that Democrats say would inject “chaos” into the critical battleground state after Election Day.
Attorneys for the Republican National Committee and Georgia Republican Party appealed the ruling directly to the Georgia Supreme Court, which has the authority to review election contest cases or certain state constitutional challenges without having to wait for the state’s intermediate court to weigh in. The state Supreme Court has the option of refusing the direct appeal.
RNC chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement Thursday evening that the ruling issued by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox a day earlier “exemplified the very worst of judicial activism.”
“By overturning the Georgia State Election Board’s commonsense rules passed to safeguard Georgia’s elections, the judge sided with the Democrats in their attacks on transparency, accountability, and the integrity of our elections,” he said. “We have immediately appealed this egregious order to ensure commonsense rules are in place for the election – we will not let this stand.”
Cox struck down seven rules passed by Georgia’s State Election Board, including one that would require county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying them and another that would allow them to “examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections prior to certification of results.”
“The court here declares that these rules are illegal, unconstitutional and void,” Cox wrote in Wednesday’s ruling.
The judge also wiped away rules that would have required officials to hand-count the number of ballots cast at each polling place on Election Day and expanded the number of areas poll watchers can access.
