New Republican-backed Georgia rules risk undermining election certification, critics say
At a rally in Atlanta earlier this month, former President Donald Trump gave a shoutout to three Republicans on the Georgia State Election Board, praising their efforts to prevent "cheating" in the 2024 election.
"They're doing a great job," Trump said. "Three members: Janice Johnston, Rick Jafferes and Janelle King. Three people are all pitbulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory."
His words of support come as Georgia's State Election Board has become the new frontline of efforts to question the integrity of the vote counting process in the critical state, just months before the presidential election.
In a divided vote this summer, the board approved two rules that empower local officials in any of Georgia's 159 counties to question the election before local officials certify its results. A vote of certification officially ends the canvassing process, in which ballots are counted and tabulated.
But for the past few years, the administrative approval known as certification has become the focus of election conspiracy theorists across the country who attempt to delay the final tabulation of results, which is required to end an election.
Since 2020, more than two dozen counties in eight states have tried to block certification of their elections — including in Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. This year alone, officials in the battleground states of Nevada and Michigan attempted not to certify local races, in a hallmark of what may come to pass in the days after November's presidential election.
Now in Georgia, and elsewhere, new rules are offering local officials an opening to question the legitimacy of elections.
"This is part of a broader strategy to achieve two things: to kick up a bunch of dust and create the appearance that something went wrong with the election, and to find weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the post-election process," said Matthew Seligman, a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and author of "How to Steal a Presidential Election."
"It's a power grab," said David Becker, a CBS News election law contributor and former Justice Department official. "And for political appointees to claim the power to say, 'We don't like the way the election turned out so we're going to hold this up,' is corrosive to our democracy."
According to the latest CBS News Battleground Tracker, polls have Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump currently tied in Georgia at 49% each.
Georgia's five-member state board serves as the regulatory body for passing rules related to voting, ballot counting, and certification — the administrative process that marks the end of the voting period.
The rules passed this month by Georgia's State Election Board are unique in that the political appointees are attempting to expand the role of officials who certify the vote at a county level. These new rules have the potential to delay certification of presidential results past its strict deadline of Nov. 12 at 5 p.m. ET.
One rule requires that county boards conduct a "reasonable inquiry" before certifying Georgia elections. The rule, submitted by Michael Heekin, Republican vice chair of the Fulton County Election Board, does not specify what "reasonable" is in the context of this inquiry, or how long the inquiry can take. Heekin refused to initially certify the state's primary results earlier this year citing concerns about ballot security.
"There is no definition as to what reasonable inquiry is. There are no parameters,"said Tori Silas, chairwoman of the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, and a Democrat. "It really could be anything."
Silas, who would be in charge of implementing the new rules if they are not contested, fears they could turn any complaint into a reason to delay naming a winner. In particular, she is concerned by the "inherently vague" language of a rule requiring counties to conduct a "reasonable inquiry" before certifying.
Silas noted that with 159 counties in Georgia, there could be 159 interpretations of what constitutes a "reasonable inquiry."
"So then how are you going to consistently apply a rule where there's no consistency in how you would define reasonable inquiry?" she asked.
The second rule allows county board members "to examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections," again without specifying which documents are part of this examination. The rule also requires county officials to reconcile the number of ballots to the number of voters "before the board computes or certifies any votes."
The rule was introduced by Salleigh Grubbs, the head of the Cobb County Republican Party, who told CBS that she does not believe President Biden won Georgia's presidential election in 2020.
"I do not think it was a fair and free election," Grubbs said.
Grubbs and her allies believe that the board's rules are necessary to address election fraud — even though those claims were proven false in 2020.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won Georgia by only 11,779 votes. Trump notoriously attempted to pressure the Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to "find 11,780 votes" in an effort to secure a victory in the state.
Georgia's board passed these rules after the far-right takeover by the voting block of Republicans Trump praised at the Atlanta rally.
The majority voting to pass these rules was formed earlier this year. King, who is the newest board member appointed in May, has become a decisive vote for the new majority. She replaced Ed Lindsey, a Republican and attorney, who was pressured to resign after voting against a prior proposal that would have enabled county election boards to delay or reject election results.
One of the complaints about these new rules is that they are redundant. There are already processes by which officials and parties can investigate the results of an election. In fact, under state law, certification of the vote has to happen before stakeholders can ask for a recount or an audit. For example, Georgia's 2020 presidential ballots were counted three times in various audits and recounts- after the vote was initially certified by counties and the state. The investigations showed that there was no fraud in the system.
"The State Board is a mess," Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's top election official, said at a recent press conference. "They have never run an election."
"Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers," he said in a statement earlier this month. "...Misguided attempts by the State Election Board will delay election results and undermine chain of custody safeguards."
A delay in certifying the results of the presidential race could be far reaching, because these elections have strict certification deadlines. According to state law in Georgia, counties must certify election results by Nov. 12, and then send the results to the Secretary of State's Office, which must certify statewide results by Nov. 22. Congress will eventually certify the results of the presidential election on Jan. 6.
Any delay — or continued litigation of issues related to certification past these deadlines — could allow election deniers or political parties to question election results entirely.
"Even one piece being delayed prevents the state from certifying the results," said Becker. "It could lead to uncertainty about the process that could be used by losing candidates to incite anger and potentially violence."
Grubbs told CBS she believes that counties will certify on time, even with the new rules in place. "They will just certify what they have," she said.
The rules passed by Georgia's State Election Board have already led to litigation. The Democratic National Committee and Democratic Party of Georgia, with the support of the Harris-Walz campaign, sued Georgia's State Election Board Monday, claiming that its new rules violate state law by allowing local officials to either delay or withhold election. The lawsuit argues that the rules "invite chaos" and risk "mass disenfranchisement" of voters.