It Just Got Easier for Trump to Block Election Results in Georgia

The Georgia State Election Board voted to make it easier for county election officials to delay or refuse certification of election results.

In a 3–2 vote on Tuesday, members voted in favor of a new rule requiring a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results. The board did not elaborate, however, on what exactly that inquiry would look like, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

That could spell chaos come November, especially considering that at least 70 election officials across 16 counties in key swing states, including Georgia, have been identified as pro–Donald Trump election denialists.

Trump praised the MAGA members of Georgia’s board days before the vote, describing Janice Johnston, Rick Jeffares, and Janelle King as “pit bulls fighting for victory.”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Georgia State Election Board is in a very positive way,” Trump said at his rally in Atlanta on Saturday. “They’re on fire, they’re doing a great job.”

According to the state election board’s website, the body is “entrusted with a variety of responsibilities and authority to protect all Georgians’ right to cast a ballot.”

Georgia has had the largest number of certification refusals since 2020 of anywhere in the country. The five-person board has been accused of ethics violations—including one instance in which its Trump-friendly majority failed to give proper notice to their Democratic colleagues about a meeting that they used to advance changes to state election rules.

And Republicans are already well into cooking up other strategies to undermine future election results. In May, Fulton County election board official Julie Adams launched a lawsuit seeking a court ruling on whether her duty to certify election results could be considered “discretionary, not ministerial, in nature.”

Meanwhile, the Fulton County election interference case—which intended to deal with Trump and his allies’ election chicanery in the state—has been put on hiatus until after November by the Georgia Court of Appeals as it weighs whether to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the case.

Willis was allowed to remain on the Georgia RICO case after a judge determined she had not hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade—a man she had a relationship with and who billed her office (and taxpayers) more than $728,000 in legal fees—for personal financial gain.