Court in Fulton County rules Georgia officials can't delay, refuse to certify election results

Local election officials in Georgia cannot delay or refuse to officially certify election results, according to a judge in Georgia ruled on Monday.

“Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results,” wrote Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney in the ruling. “Consequently, 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.”

McBurney wrote that the U.S. Constitution does not allow an election official to decline to certify the results.

“If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so – because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud – refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” he wrote. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”

Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, brought the case forward. She argued that her role in certifying the election results is discretionary and not mandatory.