Fulton County official appeals ruling requiring election certification

A Fulton County election official who refused to certify the results of the county’s spring presidential primary election has appealed a state judge’s ruling affirming that Georgia law requires officials like her to certify without delay.

Fulton County election board member Julie Adams asked a state appeals court to toss out a ruling from earlier this month that local officials have a “mandatory fixed obligation” to certify results.

Adams, who voted against certifying Georgia’s March primary results, argued that she could not “fulfill her oath of office” after other county officials declined to provide her with scores of election documents she requested ahead of the certification deadline.

Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney’s ruling emphasized that concerns over fraud or systemic error are “not a basis” for an official to decline to certify; the appropriate authorities should instead be notified in such an instance.

“If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” McBurney wrote. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”

Adams’s appeal comes as Georgia judges have repeatedly struck down new state rules, passed by the embattled State Election Board, that could fundamentally alter election procedures.

McBurney also temporarily blocked a new rule that would have required the completion of a hand-count verification on election night. A different judge, Judge Thomas Cox, found that the board did not have the authority to put seven rules — including the hand-count rule and a rule that allowed election workers to undertake a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying — into effect, deeming them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” 

The Republican National Committee, which intervened in those cases, appealed Cox’s ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the claim. But the state’s highest court declined to consider the matter on an expedited basis, all but ensuring no last-minute rule changes for this election.

County officials must certify the election’s results by Nov. 12, and Georgia’s secretary of state will certify the statewide outcome by Nov. 22.