Georgia Judge Shoots Down Efforts by Republican County Officials to Meddle with Election Process: ‘Voters Would Be Silenced’
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney issued a ruling on Tuesday that Georgia’s county election officials cannot “refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”
In an 11-page ruling, McBurney rejected a claim by Republican election official Julie Adams, who attempted to argue that her duties were “discretionary not ministerial,” giving her the power to reject the votes of an entire county if she believed they warranted further investigation. Adams refused to certify the results of the presidential primary election in her county this past spring.
McBurney wrote:
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. Our Constitution and our election code do not allow for that to happen.
The judge also wrote that while there is an “obligation” to investigate claims of fraud should they arise, such concern was “not cause to delay or decline certification.” The claims stemmed from issues during the 2020 presidential election, however there was no evidence of any widespread voting fraud.
CNN’s Pamela Brown asked Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Georgia’s Secretary of State, about what this meant for the upcoming general election:
Brown: I want to talk about this ruling because as I noted, it is a blow to some of these Republicans who are trying to broaden the powers of these election officials in Georgia. What’s your response to this big decision?
Sterling: Well, I mean, the law is the law. It’s pretty plain on its face that this is a mandatory action by these board members. But what people need to understand is — I’ve read some of the things made by plaintiffs here. And their main thought process oftentimes is that they have to review these things and make sure processes are followed, which they already do. In 2020 in Floyd County, before they certified, they realized they were missing 2,400 votes that should have been counted, and they found that a section hadn’t been scanned. They scanned them. They put in a certified vote. This is how it’s supposed to work. Everybody has a part in the process.
Brown: So what does this mean for that controversial rule from the election board about engaging in a reasonable inquiry if they have questions about some of the results?
Sterling: I mean, that’s sort of an ambiguous, squishy way to write anything. And I can understand some people’s worries about this. But these people who are the ones who are the certifiers don’t drop out of the sky on the Wednesday after the election. They are there throughout the entire process. They work with the elections workers and directors to pick the locations, look at the processes, keep up with how things are going. Looking at the voter registration list, they should be involved in this process all the way through. So there’s really nothing new here. The main thing is we are going to have, every county in the state will be certified by November 12th at 5 p.m. as the law calls for.
Watch the video above via CNN.
