Yesterday, Jay Kuo published a very good, dense article about why the Georgia State Board of Elections shenanigans are destined to fail.
Flying way under the radar and not making national news was that this board of elections has already been dragged into court and have admitted several things in open court that undercut their election-delaying rule changes:
A lot of this may go away
Following the adoption of these new rules, the Democrats sued in court because the opportunity for mischief went way up in their wake. A bench trial on that suit commenced this morning in Fulton County, Georgia.
The suit asks for a declaration that election superintendents have no discretion to delay certification past the statutory deadline or otherwise refuse to certify results. Specifically, plaintiffs ask the court to declare that “absent a valid judicial order to the contrary, election superintendents must certify the results of the November 5, 2024 election no later than 5:00 P.M. on November 12, 2024.”
The Democrats cite several Georgia election cases to argue, correctly, that “Georgia law has long treated election certification as non-discretionary.” They note, “If election officials have concerns about possible election irregularities, they are free to voice those concerns at the time of certification, so that they may be considered and adjudicated, by judges, in any subsequent election contest.” But, the plaintiffs argue, “they may not point to those election irregularities (or anything else) as a basis for delaying certification or denying it entirely. Absent a valid court order, certification by the deadline is mandatory.”
Judge Robert McBurney is now looking at all of this and will rule shortly. During the proceedings that began this morning, the State Election Board’s lawyers actually agreed that the certification deadline is mandatory and cannot be extended beyond the statutorily-imposed date of Nov. 12 at 5 p.m. They also agreed that no one has the power to change the mandatory nature of the certification.
To be clear, however: The quoted section above is not a summary of Kuo’s article. There’s A LOT of detail. The upshot is that while MAGA election officials can cause headaches and make news, they can’t actually effect ballot-counting or election-certification changes that would ultimately overturn an election.