Democrats sue battleground state election officials for alleged power grab

The Georgia Board of Elections was sued Monday by several election officials and Democrats over rules recently passed by three commissioners approved by President Trump.

The plaintiffs want to ensure that the new rules won’t prevent the results of November’s election from being certified on time.

The two rules in question require election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into the accuracy of results before certifying them and allow individual county election board members to inspect “election-related documents produced during the conduct of an election.”

The Georgia county election boards and Democrats who are suing acknowledged that the rules appear to respect certification deadlines on their face because they only allow for “reasonable investigations” or “inspections” that would not push certification past the legal deadline.

But the lawsuit says the rules could still delay certification by giving officials the power to investigate any kind of election fraud.

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“At a minimum, these new requirements would create substantial uncertainty about the post-election process and, if interpreted as the drafters suggest, would cause confusion by establishing new processes that are in conflict with existing statutory obligations,” the plaintiffs said.