Someday after a Georgia decide invalidated the state’s controversial “hand rely” rule, a separate decide Wednesday night invalidated much more guidelines that have been handed by the Republican-led state election board, declaring them “illegal and void.”
Fulton County Choose Thomas Cox dominated after an hours-long listening to to invalidate seven guidelines complete, together with the hand rely rule, discovering partly that the board didn’t have the authority to enact them.
Cox made clear that the State of Georgia and the State Election Board “are hereby DIRECTED TO IMMEDIATELY REMOVE THESE RULES FROM THEIR ROLES AND OFFICIAL REPORTING” and to “IMMEDIATELY INFORM ALL STATE AND LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIALS THAT THESE RULES ARE VOID AND ARE NOT TO BE FOLLOWED,” in his determination.
Individuals put together to vote at a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Oct. 16, 2024.
Megan Varner/Reuters
The foundations now invalidated embrace a rule calling county officers to certify election outcomes after “cheap inquiry.”
Cox wrote in his order that rule “provides a further and undefined step into the certification course of” and that it’s “inconsistent with and unsupported” by state legislation.
He additionally invalidated a rule that “requires that an individual delivering an absentee poll present a signature and photograph ID on the time the absentee poll is delivered.”
A voter enters a polling station as Georgians turned out a day after the battleground state opened early voting, in Atlanta, Oct. 16, 2024.
Megan Varner/Reuters
The decide stated in his ruling that state provisions do not require that.
“The SEB thus has no authority to require such presentment as a situation of accepting and counting an in any other case correctly delivered poll,” Cox wrote.
