SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
fulton county
Georgia Judge Rules Election Officials Can't Refuse to Certify Results
One commentator called the decision a "huge victory for democracy" and a "huge defeat for Trump's attempts to scuttle the election."
Oct 15, 2024
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 Robert 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."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Georgia Judge Won't Toss Trump Charges Under First Amendment
"Speech isn't protected when it's in furtherance of a crime, like saying 'stick 'em up' during a bank robbery," said one legal expert.
Apr 04, 2024
A Fulton County Superior Court judge on Thursday rejected a request by former U.S. President Donald Trump and most of his co-defendants to have their charges for interfering in Georgia's 2020 election dismissed on First Amendment grounds.
As Judge Scott McAfee explained, Trump and 14 other defendants in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act case "argue this prosecution violates the First Amendment's protections of political speech and activity, freedom of association, and the right to petition Congress as-applied to their alleged conduct, and further contend that the indicted charges are overbroad."
"After interpreting the indictment's language liberally in favor of the state as required at this pretrial stage," McAfee wrote in his 14-page order, "the court finds that the defendants' expressions and speech are alleged to have been made in furtherance of criminal activity and constitute false statements knowingly and willfully made in matters within a government agency's jurisdiction which threaten to deceive and harm the government."
"Even core political speech addressing matters of public concern is not impenetrable from prosecution if allegedly used to further criminal activity," he continued. "And independently lawful acts involving speech within the meaning of the First Amendment may nonetheless suffice to support a RICO conspiracy prosecution."
In other words, as University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance put it, "speech isn't protected when it's in furtherance of a crime, like saying 'stick 'em up' during a bank robbery."
The Hillnoted that the judge's Thursday ruling "leaves open the possibility that Trump could still raise a First Amendment defense down the road once the factual record is more developed."
Steve Sadow, the twice-impeached former president's lawyer, said in a statement that Trump and the other defendants "respectfully disagree with Judge McAfee's order and will continue to evaluate their options regarding First Amendment challenges."
"It is significant that the court's ruling made clear that defendants were not foreclosed from again raising their 'as-applied challenges at the appropriate time after the establishment of a factual record,'" the attorney added.
The Georgia election case has been held up recently by complications related to Democratic Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' love life, though McAfee ruled last month that she can continue to serve as the prosecutor. A trial date has not yet been set.
Trump is fighting three other criminal cases while campaigning as the presumptive Republican nominee to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the November election. There is also a New York state case stemming from hush-money payments during the 2016 election cycle as well as a pair of federal cases: one related to 2020 election interference and another that has to do with his mishandling of classified material.
In addition to 88 felony charges across the criminal cases, Trump is facing multimillion-dollar penalties in New York for "repeated and persistent fraud" related to his business and defaming E. Jean Carroll regarding rape allegations she made against him.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee overseeing the classified material case in the Southern District of Florida, on Thursday rejected the ex-president's attempt to dismiss charges based on claims that he had the right to keep the documents under federal law—though her decision also leaves him the chance to return to the argument if the case goes to trial.
In her three-page ruling, Politicoreported, "Cannon also shot down a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith to promptly reveal whether she agrees with Trump's claim that the Presidential Records Act—the post-Watergate law governing White House records—may have authorized him to keep classified records indefinitely even after leaving office."
This post has been updated to include Thursday's classified material ruling and the 88 charges, reduced from 91 in March.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Giuliani Ordered to Pay $148 Million to Defamed Georgia Election Workers
"Today's verdict not only vindicates Freeman and Moss but also serves as a reminder that we must protect the unsung heroes of democracy—our dedicated poll workers," said the head of one watchdog.
Dec 15, 2023
A Washington, D.C. jury on Friday ordered Rudy Giuliani to pay $148 million for falsely accusing two former Georgia election workers of engaging in a non-existent conspiracy to "steal" the 2020 U.S. presidential election from then-President Donald Trump.
After deliberating for roughly 10 hours over two days, the jury sided with Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss, whom the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney accused of taking part in a fake ballot harvesting scheme while they worked as election officials in Fulton County, Georgia.
Giuliani accused the women of "surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine" while they tallied ballots. In reality, the surveillance footage reviewed by Giuliani that informed his baseless claim showed Freeman handing Moss a ginger mint.
In August, Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
found Giuliani liable for defaming Freeman and Moss, and tasked a jury with determining monetary damages for the women, who endured death threats and harassment from Trump supporters.
"Today's a good day," Freeman said outside the courthouse after the decision was announced, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "A jury stood witness to what Rudy Giuliani did to me and my daughter, and held him accountable."
"I can never move back into the house that I called home. I will always have to be careful about where I go and who I choose to share my name with," Freeman continued. "I miss my home. I miss my neighbors. And I miss my name."
"Rudy Giuliani was not the only one who spread lies about us, and others must be held accountable, too," she added. "But that is tomorrow's work."
Moss said, "We hope no one ever has to fight so hard just to get your name back."
Christina Harvey, executive director at the government corruption watchdog Stand Up America, said that "today's verdict not only vindicates Freeman and Moss but also serves as a reminder that we must protect the unsung heroes of democracy—our dedicated poll workers."
"Sadly, 1 in 6 local election workers has faced threats while carrying out their duties, reflecting the country's increasingly hostile political landscape," Harvey added. "Working the polls shouldn't mean putting your safety or reputation at risk. Congress should do more to protect poll workers, and that starts with including robust election infrastructure funding in the upcoming appropriations package."
Giuliani vowed to appeal the decision.
"The absurdity of the number merely underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding, where I've not been allowed to offer one single piece of evidence in defense, which I have a lot," he said outside the courthouse. "I am quite confident when this case gets before a fair tribunal, it'll be reversed so quickly it will make your head spin."
Giuliani, Trump—who is the GOP's 2024 presidential front-runner—and others face felony criminal charges in Fulton County for trying to steal the 2020 presidential election.
In July, an attorney discipline panel ruled that Giuliani has "forfeited his right to practice law" and should be disbarred in Washington, D.C. for leading Trump's legal team as it tried to overturn the election results.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular