Georgia Judge Rules Election Officials Can't Refuse to Certify Results

Democratic officials and voting rights advocates on Tuesday celebrated "a victory for voters" in the crucial battleground state of Georgia after a county judge ruled that local officials must certify results regardless of claims of "election fraud"—an occurrence experts have found to be "vanishingly rare" despite Republican claims to the contrary.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge James McBurney handed down a ruling late Monday in a case brought by Fulton County Board of Elections member Julie Adams, who worked with the America First Policy Institute, a group with ties to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on the lawsuit.

Adams asked McBurney to rule on her claim that her election certification duties "are discretionary not ministerial"—an assertion the judge rejected.

"Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results," McBurney wrote in an 11-page ruling. "Consequently, no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance."

Adams, he said, wanted permission "to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge" with the possibility of making "a unilateral determination of error or fraud" and refusing to certify election results.

"Georgia voters would be silenced," wrote the judge. "Our constitution and our election code do not allow for that to happen."

Noting that the ruling was announced as early voting started in the state on Tuesday, voting rights reporter Ari Berman called the decision a "big victory for democratic norms and [a] loss for Trump-allied election deniers trying to subvert 2024 outcome."

"Georgia voters would be silenced. Our constitution and our election code do not allow for that to happen."

As Common Dreamsreported last month, more than 100 current election officials in swing states are among the Trump loyalists who have engaged in partisan election denial in recent years.

Adams was one of 18 county election board members in Georgia who were named in a report by the Center for Media and Democracy. She refused to certify two primary elections earlier this year and is a regional coordinator for the Election Integrity Network, which has recruited election deniers in swing states to target local election offices.

Georgia was a key focus of baseless claims by Trump and his allies that the 2020 election had been "rigged" in favor of Democratic President Joe Biden. Three recounts of the state's ballots found no evidence of election fraud that could have swung the election, and legal cases and recounts in other states garnered similar results—but Trump and his allies, including vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in an interview with The New York Times last week, have continued to deny that Trump lost the 2020 election.

"Election after election, in state after state, we have protected our elections from far-right Republicans trying to disrupt them, and Democrats remain ready to stand up and make sure every voter can cast their ballot knowing it will count," said the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Georgia in a joint statement on Tuesday. "The experts were clear that the 2020 election was free, fair, and secure, and Democrats are making sure that the 2024 is the same."

Critics say Trump and the Republican Party have been preparing for months to challenge the 2024 election, with the former president and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) repeatedly claiming that undocumented voters routinely vote in elections and calling for voters to prove their citizenship; the GOP targeting absentee and military ballots in Michigan; and the America First Policy Institute suing to block an Arizona law that prohibits harassment of election officials.

The ruling on Monday evening was a "huge victory for democracy," said lawyer and commentator Tristan Snell, and a "huge defeat for Trump's attempts to scuttle the election."

Kristen Nabers, state director of All Voting is Local Georgia said voters in the state won "against a shameless attempt from a prominent election denier who tried to turn the long-standing, routine duty of certification into a discretionary decision for election officials when they don't like the election results."

"Today's ruling confirmed that certifying elections in Georgia is a mandatory democratic duty of election officials, who don't get to override the will of the people by holding certification hostage," said Nabers. "The judge's decision gives Georgia voters much-deserved validation and confirms that there are systems in place to protect the voices of all Georgians. Election officials do not decide the results. Voters do."