A Georgia judge invalidated several new election rules on Wednesday, calling the measures approved by the state’s Republican-controlled election board “unconstitutional” and in violation of state law.
The ruling, handed down by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, applies to a hand-count rule for Election Day ballots and rules tied to the certification of results.
Cox wrote that the five-member board, which includes three officials lauded by former President Donald Trump, “had no authority to implement these rules,” and that the measures were “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.”
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office and the state election board did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday night.
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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 final results. The judge also ruled that the state’s county election boards could not refuse to certify election results.
Voters in the battleground state, which Trump narrowly lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, began heading to the polls for in-person early voting on Tuesday. An election official at the secretary of state’s office said that more than 300,000 ballots had been tallied after polls closed on the first day, breaking the record set on the first day of early voting in the 2020 contest.