ATLANTA (AP) — An appeals court in the battleground state of Georgia declined Friday to expedite review of an appeal of a judge’s order that county election officials must vote to certify results by the deadline set in law. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled this month that “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.” His ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Julie Adams a Republican member of the election board in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta and is a Democratic stronghold.
Adams, who had sought a declaration saying her duties as an election board member were discretionary, appealed that order Wednesday and asked the Georgia Court of Appeals to hear it on an expedited basis. “If this appeal proceeds in the ordinary course, then this appeal will not be fully briefed (let alone decided) until long after Election Day,” her lawyers argued in a motion. But the appeals court's decision means that McBurney's order will almost certainly remain in effect through the deadline for county officials to certify results, which this year falls on Nov.
12. Adams has asked the appeals court to weigh in on McBurney's assertion that she is required to vote in favor of certifying election results because of the deadline provided for in the law. McBurney had also noted in his order that if Adams were to find fraud or abuse, s.
