Donald Trump at Aug. 3 rally where he praised Georgia State Election Board members (Washington Post).
The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia, with the apparent support of the Harris-Walz campaign, filed a lawsuit on Monday to undo two rules adopted by three Georgia State Election Board members after former President Donald Trump praised the Republicans by name at rally on Aug. 3 and said they are “pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory.”
The lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior Court, asks a judge to declare that the “reasonable inquiry” and “examination” rules Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares and Janelle King adopted in 3-2 votes on Aug. 6 and Aug. 19 are “invalid” and should be permanently blocked because the rules purport to transform mandatory election certification into a discretionary project that will cause “confusion, disorder, and burdens,” and provide “broad license for individual board members to hunt for purported election irregularities of any kind, potentially delaying certification and displacing longstanding (and court-supervised) processes for addressing fraud.”
“Under two rules each passed by a 3-2 vote, election officials must now (1) conduct a ‘reasonable inquiry’ prior to certification and (2) permit individual county board members ‘to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections,”” the lawsuit said. “According to their drafters, these rules rest on the assumption that certification of election results by a county board is discretionary and subject to free-ranging inquiry that may delay certification or foreclose it entirely. But that is not the law in Georgia.”
“Rather, election officials have a non-discretionary duty to certify results by 5 p.m. six days after election day,” the lawsuit said. “Allegations of fraud or election misconduct are then resolved by the courts in properly filed challenges, not by county boards in the counting process.”
Warning that the rules, if allowed to stand, could lead to delays “interfering with binding federal deadlines” that “could result in the Secretary certifying results without counting ballots from the affected county,” the group of Democratic Party-affiliated petitioners argued that local Republicans, still not over the 2020 election, are trying to use “concerns about possible election irregularities” to grind certification of the vote to a halt.
More Law&Crime coverage: Trump-backed Georgia election board members enact new rule that could throw wrench into 2024 vote certification
On Aug. 3, three days before the “reasonable inquiry” rule was adopted by the board’s Republican majority, Trump said at rally that Johnston, Jeffares and King are “on fire” and “doing a great job.”
“They just passed a rule for Georgia elections requiring that three people at each precinct independently count the total number of ballots before certification,” Trump said at one point. “Who could be against that? Who could be against it? Thank you, Janice, for that very much, it’s really amazing.”
The lawsuit suggested that the board’s rules will inject “significant uncertainty” into certification of the 2024 election, and must be permanently blocked and declared “invalid.”
“By requiring a ‘reasonable inquiry’ or permitting a boundless examination prior to certification of election results, the Rules each introduce significant uncertainty into the certification process. The rules contain no guidance about what constitutes a ‘reasonable inquiry’ or the extent of the permissible examination,” the suit continued. “Nor do they explain their interaction with existing statutory certification requirements. And as noted, the rules were introduced with justifications that presume certification is a discretionary function. That is not the law. The text, structure, and history of Georgia statutes, as well as case law interpreting them, make clear that certification is a mandatory duty.”
Law&Crime sought comment from the Trump campaign.
Read the lawsuit here.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
