A Georgia judge overseeing Democrats’ challenges to new election rules created by the state’s Republican-majority election board seemed less than enthused about the idea of tossing out those rules on Tuesday, even as Democratic lawyers argue they could cause chaos in November.The rules, implemented in August, gave county election officials in Georgia permission to launch vaguely-defined “reasonable” inquiries into contested election results and authority to broadly examine “all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections.” The Democratic National Committee, the Georgia Democratic Party and some individual voters sued the state election board and state Republicans over rules when the board voted 3-2 approving the new policies.At Tuesday’s hearing in Fulton County, Judge Robert McBurney sought to establish some baseline facts at the top of the trial ― facts that may prove useful for the DNC’s lawyers to cite down the road.The judge asked attorneys for both parties whether they could agree on three simple points about election law in Georgia from the outset: that certifying the election is mandatory; that certifying the election by the Nov. 12 deadline is also mandatory; and finally, that the state elections board lacks the authority to change rules around certification, including any move to remove certification requirements or move deadlines.In a rare moment in any courtroom trial, every party initially agreed.That consensus was strained, however, as the hearing went on.Lawyer Kurt Kastorf, representing the Democratic voters who’d sued alongside the DNC, said the finality of the certification deadline was clear but exactly what the GOP rules now allow election officials to do was less clear.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/recipe-for-chaos-judge-weighs-dnc-fight-to-stop-new-election-rules_n_66fc273ee4b0453dc1ee3f86
For instance, he said, under the new rules, a Georgia election official could believe they “need to investigate irregularities” in the vote totals or should take it upon themselves to reinterpret what the law says about certification.This could be a “recipe for chaos,” Kastorf said, and “for denying Georgians their right to vote,” should local officials decide to exclude ballots from the vote count for reasons they independently determine.Kastorf said the plaintiffs feared that an election official could decide against certifying a precinct, or even an entire state, on this basis. Either way, he noted, such a move would infringe of the rights of voters to have their ballots counted.The judge noted that none of these hypotheticals have happened yet, making granting relief now a bit thornier. But DNC lawyers argued the wait-and-see approach presents its own problems, and that is why they want clear language about certification hashed out in advance.Georgia state attorney Elizabeth Young insisted that the case should proceed under the “presumption” that the state election board will certify its 2024 election results and tried to assuage the judge. But that remark prompted McBurney to note that he lives in a county where an election official had already refused to certify election results once, in 2020.“I’m wondering when we need to set aside that presumption,” he told Young.Careful with her response, Young told the judge that if a person was going to break with certifying, they would do so with or without the new rules in place.As for the other new Georgia elections board rule, which grants board members access to “all” election records created during the election prior to the final results being tallied, the judge agreed that this level of transparency made sense.
DNC attorneys said there was “no question” they supported transparency in the election. But they argued that the broad nature of the rule as written could create a situation where an individual board member may say they had not received “all” election records and therefore cannot certify the results, causing delays.“‘All’ is a big word. It’s only three letters, but it’s pretty expansive,” the judge conceded, saying that elections officials may define what counts as “all” records differently.Depending on what “all” records includes, it may be impossible for workers to compile “all” documents before the certification deadline ― even if they were to work 24 hours a day, every day ― and that would let elections board members argue that they cannot certify the state’s results.The case is not the only one related to Democrats’ concerns about how the election will play out in Georgia next month. On Tuesday, McBurney allowed attorneys for all parties to argue in a matter involving Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Election Board who refused to certify Georgia’s election results during the May primary after she raised unfounded concerns about voter data.She sued Fulton County afterward and sought a judgment declaring that she has the discretion to decide what information she needs to fulfill her obligations to certify.The oath Adams took when joining the board states that she would make a “true and perfect return” of the results. This is the part, McBurney said, that has seemed to cause so much trouble: The oath Adams took to perform her duties in accordance with Georgia law stands even if error or fraud is discovered, he said.“The oaths are not meaningless, and there’s clearly tension between a perfect return and a statute that says even if you see there are errors, you still need to certify,” he said.
Prior to Monday’s bench trial, Georgia’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, was sued by Democrats who are trying to block yet another rule advanced by the state elections board. This one was passed on Sept. 20 and requires Georgia precincts to hand-count ballots and then compare them against figures compiled by voting machines.
>>1348486>W-we're n-not rigging the machines.>N-no y-you can't check!Interdasting.
>>1348517Do you worry at all about how the people who made up the 'rigged!' thing now say they made it up?
>>1348521Don't you find it more interesting that you can't check to make sure?That's a bit like the bank not letting you count your money after they hand it to you, innit?
>>1348517>It's rigged!>You got proof?>NO! But let us fully control how the election is run to prove it's not and don't mind as we throw out any election we don't win!This is you. And why you're a threat to America
Just have two sets of machines from independent companies both do counts. Hasn't anyone thought of this yet? Surely the same county calling hand counts every election costs money too.
>>1348525How many independent audits do you need?
>>1348549What are you trying to hide?>>1348548Every company is owned by the same group of shareholders.
>>1348550>What are you trying to hide?How many independent audits do you need?
>>1348551What are you trying to hide?
>>1348551>How many independent audits do you need?one credible audit that clearly shows the truth.
Problem is, faggots, that ppl said they voted for Trump and the count doesn't match. Fucking votes go missing!?Yeah, if it happened to Dems, you know they'd want to know too where "missing votes" went. And they'd get their answer within 1 week because they always get what they want.But when Repubs ask it takes forever to get a "we are working on it".Fuck politics, it's why I don't vote anymore.
>>1348599Just because all the people you survey say they voted for Trump doesn't mean everyone did. Ultimately, the ballot is anonymous, which means you can't tell who voted for who unless they themselves blab about it. Crucially, when it comes to an election, the votes are what matter, not the willingness of citizens to say who they voted for.
>>1348613>Ultimately, the ballot is anonymousRepublicans want to stop this practice since they've breached voter roles to dox voters.
>>1348558There have been, no solid evidence of rigging has been found. You won't accept that until there is an audit that matches your feels. Which isn't going to happen, because TRUMP LOST.
/pol/ sliding this thread because the election board is going to get removed
Reddit is promoting this thread to interfere with honest elections.
>>1348480God, it's all so fucking blatant. This country has failed.
Why hasn't Trump denied this allegations?Why hasn't he attempted to show proof to the American people to establish credibility?Why haven't anyone in the Maga bothered to even read the indictments?
>>1349058Trump doesn't need to deny allegations or to establish credibility. His sheep will follow him no matter what he or anyone else does, and he knows it. This whole deal? "It's fake news." There, done, it doesn't exist anymore. Not to them.
Cold Take: If a party wants a recount outside of a narrow margin for error and that recount turns up nothing, they should be forced to pay for if it AND be fined enough money to cripple them in the next election.Enough of this bullshit death by a thousand cuts strategy where one party in this country is trying to slowly degrade faith in the system to instigate their people into rioting to take it down because they can't actually win elections. Either put up or fuck off and die. Clearly forcing the system to question itself for no reason has become too cheap.And refusing to comply with your official duty to certify an election should just be a prison sentence if you aren't following a court order. At least 6 fucking years minimum so no matter what office you were trying to fuck with, you can't do so for a cycle. Clearly the lawmakers that built the systems that run this country never conceived of people just deliberately not doing their fucking jobs in bad faith. We'd still need judges and prosecutors to be acting in good faith to uphold the system, but at least it'd be one more thing that needs to fail before the whole thing breaks.
>>1349058Why hasn't Trump shown us his tax returns?Why hasn't Trump shown us his birth certificate?I'm reminded of Elvis's manager Col. Tom Parker: he was an illegal immigrant.
