{"id":1493605,"date":"2024-10-02T23:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1493605"},"modified":"2024-10-02T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T03:15:00","slug":"georgia-judge-says-state-election-certification-rule-vague-in-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/georgia-judge-says-state-election-certification-rule-vague-in-hearing\/1493605\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Judge Says State Election Certification Rule “Vague” In Hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Georgia Judge Says State Election Certification Rule “Vague” In Hearing<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A Georgia judge seemed skeptical on Oct. 1 of policies passed by the state\u2019s election board.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney called one of the challenged rules \u201cvague\u201d and needing clarification.<\/strong> He said that much of the policies coming out of the state\u2019s election board were inconsistent with a Supreme Court ruling on rules passed before an election.<\/p>\n

One of the rules at issue in Tuesday\u2019s trial provides a definition of certification that includes\u00a0requiring county officials to conduct a \u201creasonable inquiry\u201d\u00a0before certifying results, but it does not specify what that means.<\/p>\n

The other\u00a0includes language<\/a> allowing county election officials \u201cto examine all election-related documentation created during the conduct of elections.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supporters of the rules say they are necessary to ensure the accuracy of the vote totals before county election officials sign off on them.<\/p>\n

However, critics worry that supporters of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump\u00a0could use the rules to delay or deny certification if the former president loses the state to Democratic Vice President\u00a0Kamala Harris,\u00a0causing confusion and casting doubt on the results.<\/p>\n

Need for Clarity<\/h2>\n

On the \u201creasonable inquiry\u201d rule, McBurney told Ben Thorpe, attorney for the Democratic National Committee, \u201cThat one, to me, on its face, is vague and needs clarification.\u201d<\/p>\n

McBurney seemed amenable to the examination rule, which he said appeared to be a \u201cpermissive rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI struggle to see how that presents uncertainty to anyone because it permits access but doesn\u2019t obligate anyone to do anything,\u201d <\/strong><\/em>he said.<\/p>\n

Thorpe took issue with a portion of the rule that requires election workers to meet and conduct a review of precinct returns hours before all of the returns are complete. That creates a \u201cdirect and actual concrete problem\u201d for the workers, Thorpe said.<\/p>\n

The trial was prompted by Democrats\u2019 request for declaratory judgments invalidating two policies passed by the election board. <\/strong>On Sept. 30, the Democratic Party also filed a lawsuit challenging another policy in which the election board required ballots be counted by hand.<\/p>\n

McBurney started the trial by asking the attorneys present whether they agreed that election certification was mandatory under the new rules.<\/p>\n

They did, leaving McBurney to focus, in part, on how county officials might interpret the rules laid out by the election board.<\/p>\n

Thorpe told McBurney that to the extent the judge didn\u2019t invalidate the rules in question, he should clarify that election workers must certify by the appointed deadline despite uncertainties. <\/strong>McBurney seemed to agree, suggesting a reasonable inquiry into the results without forgoing certification.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the election board and the Republican National Committee maintained that the new rule allowed election workers to stay within the confines of the law.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Young, an attorney for the election board, said that a ruling from the judge was unnecessary. She said if McBurney did anything further than suggesting election workers follow the law, he might be getting into the territory of issuing an \u201cadvisory\u201d opinion, which he said he wanted to stay away from.<\/p>\n

Bad faith on the part of an election worker, she suggested, wasn\u2019t a valid reason for issuing an advisory opinion since it indicated that the workers wouldn\u2019t be willing to follow their legal obligations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say you got a majority [of an election board] and they did not fulfill their legal duty, that sounds to me in that particular hypothetical like a very strong case for mandamus,\u201d she said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mandamus refers to a court ordering someone to fulfill their legal obligations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 10\/02\/2024 – 19:15<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/georgia-judge-says-state-election-certification-rule-vague-hearing<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Georgia Judge Says State Election Certification Rule “Vague” In Hearing Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times, A Georgia judge seemed skeptical on Oct….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1493606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1493605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1493605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1493605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1493606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1493605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1493605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1493605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}