A Georgia judge nullified seven election integrity rules approved by the State Election Board (SEB) less than three weeks before Election Day.

Fulton County Judge Thomas Cox ruled that “the SEB lacked constitutional authority to enact” a series of proposals that were designed to maintain and ensure election integrity and accurate vote counts. Cox ruled that the state legislature is vested with the authority to regulate elections — even though the SEB is responsible for “promulgating rules and regulation to promote uniformity in election practices, and to promote legality and purity in elections.”

Other responsibilities of the SEB, as outlined by the secretary of state’s office, include “developing rules and regulations about what constitutes a vote that will be counted” and “taking such other action as the board may deem appropriate to conduct ‘fair, legal and orderly elections.’”

“The questions presented are legal ones regarding whether SEB had the authority to promulgate the rules at issue and whether these rules are legally enforceable in light of the Election Code, the Georgia Constitution, and the U.S. Constitution,” Cox wrote. Cox concluded that “the SEB lacks authority to promulgate these challenged rules” and that “the SEB has no constitutional authority to promulgate these rules because the General Assembly did not provide ‘sufficient’ or ‘realistic’ parameters guiding the SEB’s rulemaking........

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