On Tuesday, a Georgia judge will hear a challenge to new rules put in place by the state’s Republican-controlled election commission, as Democrats seek to overturn last-minute changes they say are designed to undermine confidence in US election results on November 5.
In August, the Georgia Election Commission authorized county election board members to investigate discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters in each precinct and to examine a range of election-related documents before certifying the results. His 3-2 vote was supported by three allies of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who lost to Democrat Joe Biden in Georgia in 2020 and made false claims of widespread vote fraud.
Georgia is one of seven hotly contested states expected to determine the outcome of the presidential race between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.
The non-jury trial before Judge Robert McBurney in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta did not include another controversial political move by the board. Democrats filed the lawsuit Monday in an attempt to block the board’s Sept. 20 decision to require manual ballot counts.
Republican Brad Raffensperger, who as secretary of state is Georgia’s top elections official, said the board’s 11th-hour changes would undermine voter confidence and burden election workers.
The majority of the board said the various new rules are intended to make elections more secure and transparent. Trump, who is seeking a return to the presidency, praised his three allies on the board as “pit bulls.”
The national and state Democratic parties sued Georgia’s election commission on Aug. 26, seeking to overturn the August rules and declare that the state’s election results must be certified by Nov. 12, a week after Election Day.
“These new requirements introduce significant uncertainty into the post-election process,” Democrats wrote in their Aug. 26 petition filing the lawsuit.
Attorneys for the election commission said the new rules prevent election administrators from delaying certification, dismissing as speculative Democratic concerns that commission investigations could cause delays.
Democrats argued in a filing that the new rules would “cause chaos” by giving county officials license to pursue suspected fraud and potentially delay certification. They said certification of election results is required under state law and that there are other ways to contest contested results.
