Georgia Supreme Court considers whether judge was right to block new election rules

Georgia’s highest court heard arguments Wednesday on whether a lower court judge ruled correctly when he blocked seven rules passed by the State Election Board just before last year’s general election and declared that the board didn’t have the authority to pass them.

The board passed a slate of new rules in August and September that mostly had to do with processes after ballots are cast, spawning a flurry of lawsuits. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox ruled in mid-October that seven of the rules were “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”

Cox failed to exercise appropriate judicial restraint when he issued his “consequential, far-reaching” order that implicates every rule created by the State Election Board and calls into question the existence of the board and other state agencies with similar enabling legislation, lawyers for the state argued in a court filing. Critics of the rules say Cox got it right.