Republicans appeal ruling invalidating Georgia election rules

National and state Republicans have appealed a Georgia judge's ruling that a handful of controversial rules passed in recent months by the GOP-led State Election Board are “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Georgia Republican Party asked a state appeals court to overturn a ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, who found Wednesday that the board does not have the authority to put seven rules into effect.

The rejected rules included requiring that ballots be hand-counted by precinct, allowing a "reasonable inquiry" to be undertaken by election workers ahead of certification and letting election officials examine "all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections."

In a statement, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley called Cox's ruling "the very worst of judicial activism."

"By overturning the Georgia State Election Board's commonsense rules passed to safeguard Georgia's elections, the judge sided with the Democrats in their attacks on transparency, accountability, and the integrity of our elections," Whatley said. "We have immediately appealed this egregious order to ensure commonsense rules are in place for the election - we will not let this stand."

The state Supreme Court could refuse to hear the appeal.

Georgia's State Election Board has faced heightened scrutiny after passing multiple contentious rules ahead of the election. The ruling being appealed stems from a lawsuit brought by Eternal Vigilance Action, a nonprofit founded by former Georgia Rep. Scot Turner, a Republican, which asserted that the state board exceeded its authority by adopting the rules.

"This is a victory for the Constitution and the principle of separation of powers," Turner wrote in a post on the social media platform X following Cox's ruling. "Every conservative should see this as a win and significant pushback on an unelected board making law."

Judge Robert McBurney, a different Georgia judge overseeing several challenges to the state board's new rules, recently temporarily blocked the hand-count rule from going into effect, writing that the public is “not disserved by pressing pause.” He has not issued any decision on five other rules before him in that case, nor on the merits of the hand-count rule.

Earlier this week, McBurney established that county election officials may not delay or decline to certify election results on the basis of suspicion of fraud, rejecting a challenge from a Fulton County election board member who refused to certify during Georgia’s spring primary.

He's also weighing the board's “reasonable inquiry” rule and the rule that would let election workers examine election documentation.

Georgia is one of seven critical battleground states that could shape the presidential election’s outcome next month. Critics of the rules had warned that "chaos" would be unleashed with the 11th-hour rule changes, while proponents said the rules served to better safeguard November's elections.