Georgia Supreme Court rejects Republican attempt to quickly reinstate invalidated election rules
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by national and state Republicans to immediately reinstate recently passed election rules that a judge had ruled were invalid.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox last week ruled that the State Election Board didn’t have the authority to adopt the new rules and declared them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party had appealed that ruling to Georgia’s highest court and had asked that it be handled in an expedited manner and for the rules to be reinstated while the appeal was pending.
The Supreme Court declined the request for expedited handling and declined to put Cox’s order on hold. The court’s order says that once the appeal is docketed it will “proceed in the ordinary course,” which means it will likely take months before there’s a ruling.
The three-person Republican majority on the State Election Board, which was praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally in Atlanta in August, voted to adopt multiple rules in August and September over the objections of the board’s lone Democrat and the nonpartisan chair. There have been at least half a dozen lawsuits filed in response, each challenging one or more of those rules. Given the tight timeframe with the November general election just weeks away, judges have acted quickly to set and hold hearings in those cases.