When Julie Adams refused to certify this year’s presidential primary, she didn’t cite any wrongdoing or fraud, nor did she claim ballots were missed or counted wrongly.

Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County election board, wouldn’t approve the election because she wanted to review voter sign-in lists, drop box custody forms and piles of other election documents.

Her “no” vote didn’t prevail, and the board certified the election on a 3-2 vote, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.

But in this year’s presidential election, votes against certifying elections could become a tool to dispute or even attempt to overturn results in a close race.

A rising number of Republican election board members in Georgia have rejected certifying election results since 2020 — when then-GOP President Donald Trump falsely claimed his loss was due to fraud — creating a potential for delay and tumult after Election Day in a competitive state.

ExploreGeorgia law requires county election boards to certify results to make them official

At least 19 election board members across nine Georgia counties have objected to certifying elections during the past four years, according to a statewide survey by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Georgia is one of eight states — along with other battlegrounds such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where county-level election officials have voted against certifying elections since the prior presidential election.

And the State Election Board’s majority, which was praised by Trump at an Atlanta rally, passed a new rule this month that could lead to more noncertification votes. The rule requires county election boards to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certification.

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

The State Election Board could go even further Monday, when it will consider another rule that would require county election boards to review information such as lists of voters by ballot type and comparisons of ballots to voter check-ins.

If a county election board objects to certifying results after a presidential election, those votes wouldn’t be counted until the controversy is resolved in court or the board changes course.

The redefinition of certification is the latest Republican-driven change to Georgia election rules and laws since Trump lost the close 2020 race. His allegations of fraud — which he has repeated continuously for nearly four years — have never been proved. State election investigations dismissed cases alleging illegal drop box ballot stuffing, election night fraud at State Farm Arena, ineligible voters and counterfeit ballots.

But Republican trust in elections remains shattered. An AJC poll in June found that only 35% of Republican likely voters said they’re confident the presidential election will be fair and accurate.

ExploreGeorgia Election Board finalizes ambiguous certification rule

Voting rights advocates and election officials say the new certification rules could allow partisans to challenge valid election results on the pretext of minor technicalities or nonexistent fraud.

“We need people to do their jobs and certify elections without saying, ‘Due to political reasons, I don’t have enough information,’ ” said Patrise Perkins-Hooker, who was the Fulton board’s chairwoman when Adams voted against certification. “It’s a threat to our democracy if you have a system where people are deciding what they need to certify that’s more than what’s required.”

Adams, who filed a lawsuit seeking to make election certification “discretionary” rather than mandatory, said she needed more documentation before she felt comfortable approving the presidential primary for Fulton, a heavily Democratic county that includes most of the city of Atlanta.

“I am a Republican, but all I want is free and fair and transparent elections,” Adams said in an interview this spring after the Republican Party appointed her to the board in February. “I am willing to accept whatever the will of the people is. I just want the elections run correctly.”

‘Check with me in November’

Election results depend on county election boards, many of them appointed by the Republican and Democratic parties, or by county commissions or judges.

While election certification is required by state law and was once routine, it has become a point of contention primarily among Republican appointees who withhold their votes because of real or perceived problems.

Almost all of the 19 county election board members who either objected to certification votes or abstained are Republicans, according to the AJC’s survey, which obtained responses from 136 of Georgia’s 159 counties.

Credit: Ben Gray

Some election board members who voted against certifying before wouldn’t commit to certifying the upcoming presidential election.

“Check with me in November,” Michael Heekin, a Republican election board member in Fulton who opposed certifying the March presidential primary, said in an interview this spring. “Without knowing whether there has been a break in the chain of custody in the most important factors in our democracy — the votes, electronically and physical ballots — we cannot attest that the votes have been properly tabulated.”

David Hancock, a Republican election board member in Gwinnett County, said he abstained from signing off on this year’s general primary because a box on a form from two precincts hadn’t been checked to show that ballots were brought by two poll workers, and because a school board candidate in a close election lost election day precincts where she had won the early vote.

“I didn’t think anything was fraudulent at all. I just wanted to make sure everything was done by the book. One of the reasons I’m doing this is to make sure everything is done correctly in November,” Hancock said. “I’m hoping to get to the point where I could certify. There will always be a few little things that aren’t done right, but I’m hoping there aren’t significant problems.”

Democrats worry that Republicans could refuse to certify the presidential election if Kamala Harris defeats Trump in Georgia.

“The thing that keeps me up at nighttime is, what happens in redder counties across our state if Republicans are unsatisfied with whatever contrived controversy they make up?” said Kevin Olasanoye, executive director for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “What kind of chaos ensues?”

The shadow of 2020

One Georgia county refused to certify the 2020 recount in the presidential race: Coffee County, the same place where pro-Trump Republicans hired computer analysts to copy the state’s election software.

Coffee’s election board had concerns about the recount weeks before the intrusion, when its members couldn’t resolve a 50-vote discrepancy in the vote count after days of trying.

After speaking with Coffee officials, the secretary of state’s office believed election workers had likely counted a batch of 50 ballots twice. But some Coffee election officials blamed the state’s Dominion Voting System machines, suggesting they could be manipulated. Nearly 70% of Coffee voters supported Trump in 2020.

A federal cybersecurity agency reported in 2022 that Dominion machines are vulnerable to hacking, though election officials say the chance is remote. No evidence has emerged that the machines were manipulated during the 2020 election.

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Matthew McCullough, a current board member who also served in 2020, doesn’t believe Coffee’s machines were manipulated. Instead, he said the source of the 50-vote discrepancy proved to be more mundane: A ballot scanner had become too dirty and kept jamming. That delayed efforts to recount the ballots and resolve the discrepancy.

McCullough said technicians eventually realized what was wrong and cleaned the scanner. But the issue was not resolved until days after the deadline to certify the recount. He said the board certified the original election night count, which he believes was accurate.

Credit: Coffee County

“A lot of people made it out to be a lot more of a conspiracy theory than it was,” he said.

After the 2020 election in Fulton, two Republicans voted not to certify twice — once days after the November election and again after a hand-count audit and a machine recount. During the first certification meeting, former election board members Kathleen Ruth and Mark Wingate said they were wary of certifying the results when there was a pending lawsuit against the election board over 3,600 challenged voters who may have cast ballots during early voting.

Another cornerstone of the two Republicans’ votes was absentee ballot scanners, which were never set up to verify absentee ballot signatures; instead, signatures were verified by hand.

Ruth told the AJC she voted not to certify because the election was mismanaged and said Fulton has a history of poorly conducted elections.

“My decision had nothing to do with the personalities on the ballot but everything to do with issues administering the election under the last director,” Ruth said.

The certification process is more than a formality, she said.

“You have to have the confidence that the department ran the election well,” Ruth said.

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The point of certification is for county election boards to officially recognize what happened in an election and establish the results to the best of their ability, said Ryan Germany, co-chairman for the Georgia chapter of the American Bar Association’s Task Force for Democracy.

State law says county election boards “shall” certify elections — meaning it’s a required step before recounts or election contests in court.

If election boards find errors or fraud, they should still certify and then report problems to prosecutors afterward, according to the law.

County election board members have oversight duties throughout elections, and they also have a responsibility to certify the election at the end of the process, said Germany, an attorney who previously worked as general counsel for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.

An effort to stall the presidential election and prevent a county’s votes from being certified wouldn’t work, he said.

“We still have the results, regardless of what the counties do. But I don’t want to reach that uncharted territory,” Germany said. “I don’t think the law will allow them to hold votes hostage.”

County election boards must certify election results during public meetings one week after Election Day, on Nov. 12. Then, after an audit of the presidential election, the deadline for Raffensperger to certify statewide results is Nov. 22.

“We fully anticipate that counties will follow the law,” Raffensperger said.

Discretion and duty

In her lawsuit over certification, Adams said the Fulton elections director and election board chair thwarted her efforts to fulfill her duties as a board member.

Adams says she was denied the detailed information she needed to certify the results of the March presidential primary. Among other things, she sought the list of all registered voters, voter check-in lists for each precinct and tapes showing the number of ballots cast on each voting machine in every precinct.

Elections Director Nadine Williams told her most of the material was not readily available and not needed for the board to certify the results. Election board members have a responsibility to review vote totals and investigate errors before certification, but the law requires them to certify afterward.

Without the documents they demanded, Adams and Heekin voted against certifying the election results.

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Besides her position on the Fulton election board, Adams is a regional coordinator for the Election Integrity Network, an organization founded by Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who supported efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat in 2020.

The lawsuit questions the proper role of county election board members.

Adams cites the oath she swore as a board member, which requires her to “prevent any fraud, deceit or abuse” in elections and to “make a true and perfect return” of the results. She says her duties are “discretionary” — she can refuse to certify an election she deems to be fraudulent or imperfect.

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Fulton lawyers responded that the election board’s duty to certify results is “mandatory, not discretionary” under state law. They say board members’ job is to ensure the voting tallies are numerically accurate, not to conduct their own personal investigations.

In court documents, the county says it would take Adams weeks to personally review all the data she requested. But state law requires the board to certify the results by the Monday after the election.

More than a century of legislative and judicial history in Georgia and across the country support a limited role for local election boards, according to a recent analysis published in the Stanford Law & Policy Review.

In 1898, for example, Democratic election superintendents in Coffee County sought to exclude votes cast in one precinct — votes that would have cost the election for the party’s candidates for the General Assembly and sheriff.

The Democrats cited procedural questions about the way the precinct’s returns were handled. But the Georgia Supreme Court rejected their arguments, saying it would be wrong to not count the votes because of a mere technicality.

ExploreReinvestigation of Fulton’s 2020 election ordered by Georgia Election Board

In a 1926 case, the state Supreme Court ruled that local election superintendents “have no right to adjudicate upon the subject of irregularity or fraud” and their duties are “purely ministerial.” And in 1947 the court found election canvassers “are given no discretionary power except to determine if the returns are in proper form and executed by the proper officials and to pronounce the mathematical result, unless additional authority is expressed.”

Spalding County election board member Roy McClain objects to the idea that his certification vote is merely “ministerial.”

McClain voted against certifying last fall’s local elections because he said he promised the public not to if a hand count was off by more than one vote from the machine count. Out of 5,500 ballots cast, the hand count was within three votes of the machine count in each of four races.

“The only reason to not certify an election is a material defect. You have to stop and investigate the material defect to understand what happened and fix it before you can go to certification,” said McClain, a Republican. “I don’t care what political flavor you are, elections need to be administered correctly.”

A handful of Democrats on county election boards have also voted against certifying elections since 2020.

Helen Butler, executive director for the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group, refused to certify the 2020 presidential primary when she was a member of the Morgan County election board. She was joined by fellow Democratic election board member Avery Jackson.

Butler said she was concerned that the state’s new voting machines weren’t counting all votes of absentee voters who filled in ovals lightly or used check marks or X’s. The State Election Board later passed a rule that set a threshold for how scanners count ballots.

“I wanted to place the objection there so it would be noted … to make sure everything worked properly because in November, it would matter because more people would show up to vote,” Butler said. “I wanted to make sure everything did get done accurately.”

Tori Silas, chair of the Cobb County election board, also said certification is not discretionary but rather the legal duty of election officials.

Silas told the AJC that a board refusing to certify an election “is tantamount to voter disenfranchisement.”

And without a clear definition of what a “reasonable inquiry” is, the recent state election certification rule change could pave the way for partisan election boards to not certify the November general election results, a move Silas said would be a form of government overreach.

“It is an open-ended inquiry that would essentially press pause on the certification process,” Silas said. “There are no parameters, there are no specifics as to what a ‘reasonable inquiry’ is, so that would be left to the interpretation of 159 election superintendents.”

The State Election Board has the power to pass rules as long as they comply with state law but doesn’t have a role in certifying presidential elections, which is the responsibility of county election boards and the secretary of state.

‘My vote isn’t a rubber stamp’

At its core, the fight over election certification is about risk:

Is it more dangerous for democracy for partisan election board members to refuse to certify an election, or does the greater threat come from potential errors by election workers?

Cobb election board member Debbie Fisher, a Republican, said she voted against certifying local elections last fall because of “data inconsistencies” that listed some voters’ names twice in daily early voting reports. The issue was corrected, and there’s no evidence that those individuals voted twice.

“If there are any irregularities, it’s my duty to call them out. My vote isn’t a rubber stamp,” Fisher said. “When there’s glaring things like there were in the municipal election, in my opinion, that’s an issue.”

Fisher and other Republican election board members said they lacked confidence to sign certification documents that say results are “a true and correct count of the votes cast.”

Conservative voting rights organizations have pushed back on the notion that certification is a “ministerial” procedure and instead say it ensures the proper processes were followed to conduct a fair election.

Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC

“They have every right to raise questions when mistakes and discrepancies inevitably arise on Election Day,” said Caitlin O’Dea, a spokeswoman for the conservative voter registration group Greater Georgia. “Instead of trying to silence them, we should embrace their important role as watchdogs at the local level — and empower them to investigate issues that might affect the outcome of our elections.”

Voting rights groups such as Protect Democracy said election board members warned that votes against certification after this year’s election could have a nationwide impact.

If a state’s results aren’t certified and neither presidential candidate achieved the 270 votes required to win in the Electoral College, the fate of the election would land in the U.S. House of Representatives, where each state’s delegation would have one vote. Republicans currently hold U.S. House majorities in 28 of 50 states.

“Delay tactics can throw chaos into the process, it can lead to doubt and confusion, it’s the spreading of disinformation that undermines trust in elections,” said Catherine Chen, an attorney for Protect Democracy. “We don’t want to get into a situation where we’re risking disenfranchising voters.”