The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected on Tuesday an attempt by national and state Republicans to reinstate a string of controversial election rules after a judge deemed them unconstitutional last week.
The state’s highest court shut down emergency efforts by the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party to impose seven rules passed by the State Election Board, including a ballot hand-counting rule and a rule that allows for a “reasonable inquiry” before officials certify the election.
The state Supreme Court said in a one-page order that the RNC’s appeal would proceed in an “ordinary course,” meaning no final decisions on the appeal will be made in the battleground state before Election Day.
The decision came as early voting is well underway in the Peach State and as more than 1.5 million ballots have already been cast.
Georgia’s State Election Board, a five-member panel that includes three Republicans who have been praised by former President Donald Trump, has the authority to make rules that support the “fair, legal, and orderly conduct” of elections, according to state law.
However, seven of the rules the board adopted, which are now at the center of Republicans’ appeal, have in the past several weeks attracted a slate of legal challenges from Democrats and Democratic-aligned groups.
One of the rules, the “reasonable inquiry rule,” which the State Election Board passed by a 3–2 vote in August, caused particular alarm for critics, who said it would give local officials clearance to decline to certify Georgia’s election results while an inquiry into the election was taking place.
Another rule, called the “hand count rule,” would have required election officials to conduct a hand count of all physical ballots (not a hand count of votes on the ballots) on election night. Republicans argued in their motion to the state Supreme Court that this was a “common-sense measure to further the ‘legality and purity’ of Georgia elections.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox invalidated the seven rules in an order last week, finding that they all violated Georgia’s Constitution and election code and were therefore “unenforceable and void.”
In appealing Cox’s order, Republicans’ bypassed the Georgia Court of Appeals and went straight to the state’s highest court, saying an expedited halt on Cox’s order was needed so that the rules could be implemented for the 2024 election.
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Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon criticized the state Supreme Court’s decision, saying in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner that the election board rules were designed to “reinforce key transparency and checks and balances.”
“It is supremely disappointing to observe yet another failure of our judicial system to expeditiously resolve critical questions about our elections process,” McKoon said.
An RNC spokesperson said in a statement that the group was still optimistic about its appeal.
“While the Georgia Supreme Court denied this request, we are confident we will ultimately win on appeal,” the spokesperson said. “We will continue to fight in Georgia and across the country for election safeguards that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
