Georgia Election Officials Have a Duty to Certify Results, Judge Rules
A Georgia judge ruled Monday that certifying election results is a mandatory duty for county election officials.
In his opinion, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney stated that “certifying election results…is mandatory” and “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”
On Oct. 23, the county election official who brought the lawsuit appealed McBurney’s ruling. Litigation will continue in the Georgia Court of Appeals.
With 22 active voting rights cases, Georgia continues to take the lead as one of the hottest litigation states this cycle.
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Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Elections and Registration (BRE), filed the lawsuit against Fulton County on Sept. 12. This was her second lawsuit following her refusal to certify the results of the county’s May primary elections. McBurney dismissed the first case in early September for procedural reasons without making a judgment on the role of county election officials.
In both suits, Adams argued that while county boards have a duty to certify election results, individual members do not, allowing them to vote for or against certification. She asked the court to declare that certifying election results is a discretionary, not mandatory, duty, and to allow board members full access to election materials.
Adams had refused to certify the May primary results after she was denied information that she claimed she needed in order to certify. The information she requested included a list of all registered voters, voter check-in lists from each precinct, and a list of all voters who requested, received and/or returned absentee ballots. After being told by the board’s director that the data was not readily available and not needed for certification, Adams filed a lawsuit claiming that she was being prevented from performing her duties.
McBurney’s Oct. 14 order stated that “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. Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”
The ruling further noted that while election officials may seek certain, non-confidential election-related information, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so.”
Democrats, who intervened in the case, argued that certification is a “straightforward” and “mandatory” duty, not an opportunity to investigate election irregularities of any kind.
The case went to trial on Oct. 1 in Fulton County Superior Court. During the proceedings, McBurney appeared reluctant to allow discretion that could lead to the BRE as a whole not certifying election results.
In addition to her position on the Fulton BRE, Adams is a regional coordinator for the Election Integrity Network, an organization founded by former Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell that uses flawed voter roll records to pursue voter challenges.
Certification, which has traditionally been a procedural part of the election process, has increasingly become a vehicle for partisan defiance. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found that at least 19 county election officials in Georgia have voted not to certify election results since 2020—almost all of them Republicans. Some of those officials have refused to commit to certifying the November election results. Refusals to certify in states like Georgia could delay election results and sow doubt about their validity in November.
According to the American Bar Association’s Democracy Task Force, Georgia county election officials are bound by state law to certify results. If they discover an error or fraud, they still have to certify by the deadline and then report the discrepancies to prosecutors. Additionally, candidates can contest election results if misconduct, fraud or irregularities are discovered—but they can only do that once results have been certified.
The deadline for county election officials to certify is Nov. 12, after which Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) will audit and certify statewide results by Nov. 22.
Learn more about the case here.
Updated Oct. 24 to reflect Adams’s appeal.