408
submitted 22 hours ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

A Georgia judge has ruled county election officials must certify election results by the deadline set in law and cannot exclude any group of votes from certification even if they suspect error or fraud.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that “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.” While they have the right to inspect the conduct of an election and to review related documents, he wrote, “any delay in receiving such information is not a basis for refusing to certify the election results or abstaining from doing so.”

Georgia law says county election superintendents, which are multimember boards in most counties, “shall” certify election results by 5 p.m. on the Monday after an election — or the Tuesday if Monday is a holiday as it is this year.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 39 points 22 hours ago

Doesn't matter: there's no one to enforce the judge's ruling and no penalty for refusing, so anyone who does decide not to certify an election faces...sternly worded letter? lawsuit? contempt of court if that goes against them?

As we saw through Trump's first term, laws only work if there are penalties, and penalties only work if there is someone to enforce them.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 27 points 21 hours ago

Contempt and jail. For low-level officials it happens. See Kim Davis, the clerk that refused to issue a marriage certificate for a gay marriage.

[-] tburkhol@lemmy.world 23 points 21 hours ago

That took 2 months. She served 4 days while deputies were empowered by another court case to do her job and right-wing nutjobs paid her bills. Then she met the Pope.

A Georgia election official who gums up the works for two months to give cover to a Trump victory is getting a big promotion.

[-] Wrench@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

And can ride the grift train for at least a season, and since this is election denial related, every 2 years at the least.

These dicks will sell out our democracy for a ticket on that train in a heartbeat

[-] actually@lemmy.world 10 points 21 hours ago

Seems to me there has been many sponsored or wealthy who don’t mind getting a slap on the wrist, or suffer jail time after years of court. It seems to be a great way to advance careers and influence.

I’ve yet to see a regular person flouting such rules.

The system may be broken

[-] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

That's the system working exactly as designed unfortunately.

[-] FruitLips@lemmy.ml 0 points 20 hours ago

Challenge accepted.

this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
408 points (100.0% liked)

News

23150 readers
3739 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS