A Georgia judge has ruled county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law and cannot exclude any group of votes from certification even if they suspect error or fraud.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that “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.” While they have the right to inspect the conduct of an election and to review related documents, he wrote, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so.”
Georgia law says county election superintendents, which are multimember boards in most counties, “shall” certify election results by 5 p.m. on the Monday after an election — or the Tuesday if Monday is a holiday as it is this year.
This is definitely going to be used by election deniers to say “See, they really don’t want fair elections.” I’m not sure I really understand the role of election certification if it has to happen regardless by law. What is to be done in the case of real election interference or fraud?
Edit: Turns out reading the article can help 😅
Judge McBurney wrote that nothing in Georgia law gives county election officials the authority to determine that fraud has occurred or what should be done about it. Instead, he wrote, the law says a county election official’s “concerns about fraud or systemic error are to be noted and shared with the appropriate authorities but they are not a basis for a superintendent to decline to certify.”
I may be a jackoff, but I’m not so big of a jackoff that a judge needs to tell me to do my job.
Good. I hope the state supreme court doesn’t overturn this ruling.
Doesn’t matter: there’s no one to enforce the judge’s ruling and no penalty for refusing, so anyone who does decide not to certify an election faces…sternly worded letter? lawsuit? contempt of court if that goes against them?
As we saw through Trump’s first term, laws only work if there are penalties, and penalties only work if there is someone to enforce them.
Contempt and jail. For low-level officials it happens. See Kim Davis, the clerk that refused to issue a marriage certificate for a gay marriage.
That took 2 months. She served 4 days while deputies were empowered by another court case to do her job and right-wing nutjobs paid her bills. Then she met the Pope.
A Georgia election official who gums up the works for two months to give cover to a Trump victory is getting a big promotion.
And can ride the grift train for at least a season, and since this is election denial related, every 2 years at the least.
These dicks will sell out our democracy for a ticket on that train in a heartbeat
Seems to me there has been many sponsored or wealthy who don’t mind getting a slap on the wrist, or suffer jail time after years of court. It seems to be a great way to advance careers and influence.
I’ve yet to see a regular person flouting such rules.
The system may be broken
That’s the system working exactly as designed unfortunately.
We’re 3 weeks away from the elections. It’s a hard sell thinking anything government related gets sorted in that time frame.
Ha. Courts can move fast when there are luxury vacations and RVs on the line.
“It’s not an RV, it’s a motorcoach”
a sentence that sounds best when shouted from a prison cell
FUCKING CHRIST!
THIS SHOULDN’T NEED A FUCKING RULING!
WHETHER OR NOT THE PRESIDENT CAN COMMIT CRIMES SHOULDN’T HAVE NEEDED A FUCKING RULING!
I understand your frustration but have to add to it: These are the kind of people who will ignore the ruling anyway unless the election results suit them
We’re so fucked. I hate it.
How is this not already the rule for decades?
Probably cause it’s one of those that didn’t need to be said.
Like it isn’t written in law that you shouldn’t shit in a plane aisle but people probably assume it’s a nono.
True true, we shouldn’t need laws telling people not to be a dick.
It has been. The law is unambiguous, and the judge was just applying the existing law in this case.
Thank you, Robert McBurney!
for what? paying lip service without including any enforcement or penalties?
trump is able to do his shit because no one will enforce the law on him and this will likely go down the same way.
