A Georgia decide invalidated a number of new election guidelines on Wednesday, calling the measures accredited by the state’s Republican-controlled election board “unconstitutional” and in violation of state regulation.
The ruling, handed down by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, applies to a hand-count rule for Election Day ballots and guidelines tied to the certification of outcomes.
Cox wrote that the five-member board, which incorporates three officers lauded by former President Donald Trump, “had no authority to implement these guidelines,” and that the measures have been “unlawful, unconstitutional, and void.”
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office and the state election board didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark Wednesday evening.
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Cox’s ruling comes a day after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney blocked the rule requiring that ballots be hand-counted on Election Day which critics have argued would stir delays in reporting the ultimate outcomes. The decide additionally dominated that the state’s county election boards couldn’t refuse to certify election outcomes.
Voters within the battleground state, which Trump narrowly misplaced to President Joe Biden in 2020, started heading to the polls for in-person early voting on Tuesday. An election official on the secretary of state’s workplace mentioned that greater than 300,000 ballots had been tallied after polls closed on the primary day, breaking the file set on the primary day of early voting within the 2020 contest.