Oct. 18 (UPI) — Georgia state GOP officials and the national party appealed a Georgia judge’s ruling this week that nullified seven election rules adopted by the state election board.
The Georgia Republican shared the appeal to social media, calling the case a “bogus” attempt to shut down what it called “common sense election transparency rules.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, however, said in his ruling that the rules, which included requirements for officials to hand count the number of ballots cast at each polling place on Election Day and an expansion of the number of areas poll watchers can have access to were “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”
Other rules would have required county election officials to make a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying them while another would allow election boards to examine “all election-related documentation created during the conduct of elections prior to certification of results.”
RNC Chair Michael Whatley called Cox’s ruling the “worst of judicial activism.”
“By overturning the Georgia State Election Board’s common sense rules passed to safeguard Georgia’s elections, the judge sided with the Democrats in their attacks on transparency, accountability and the integrity of our elections,” Whatley said in a statement.
“We have immediately appealed this egregious order to ensure common sense rules are in place for this election. We will not let this stand.”
Georgia is a hotly contested battleground state that Trump won in 2016, but President Joe Biden captured by a slim margin in 2020. Trump and numerous associates are facing state election interference charges over their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 elections. That case is currently bogged down in state court.