ATLANTA (AP) — The state and federal Democratic parties filed suit Monday to block two rules recently adopted by the Georgia State Board of Elections that could be used by county officials to refuse to certify an election, potentially causing delays in the final announcement of the state’s results.

The lawsuit, filed before an Atlanta judge, argues that the rules violate a state law that makes certification a requirement. The suit asks the judge to find that the rules are invalid because the state election board, now dominated by allies of former President Donald Trump, exceeded its legal authority.

The panel’s actions alarm Democrats and voting rights activists because they come against the backdrop of a partisan battle over voting procedures in Georgia that began even before the 2020 presidential election. It’s a battle in yet another state over something that has long been an administrative side issue: the certification of results by state and local panels.

The lawsuit alleges that the rules would invite post-election chaos. The committee is violating state law that requires county officials to “certify” the results. Moreover, Georgia case law dating back more than a century shows that county officials have no leeway.

“According to their drafters, these rules are based on the assumption that the certification of election results by a county board is discretionary and subject to extensive investigations that can delay or prevent certification altogether. But that is not the law in Georgia,” says the lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior Court.

Pro-Trump Republicans argue that the rules merely reinforce a county election board’s existing duty to thoroughly examine election results, pointing out that each board member must swear an oath to compile “true and perfect” results.

“These common-sense changes will benefit all Georgians regardless of their political affiliation, as they all aim to increase transparency and public trust in our elections,” state Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon said in a statement defending the rule changes Monday before the lawsuit was made public.

A trio of Republicans close to Trump took control of the five-member regulatory panel earlier this year. The panel has no direct role in determining the outcome of the election but writes rules to ensure a smooth election process and hears complaints about violations.

Trump praised those members by name during an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta, saying the three are “all pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory,” but criticized the Democrat on the board and the bipartisan chairman appointed by Governor Brian Kemp, saying they are “not that good.”

This, and the fact that McKoon praised the panel’s power grab and later emailed proposed rules to board members, led Democrats to claim that the once-sleepy panel was now a direct tool of Trump.

“The Georgia State Board of Elections is becoming an equal co-conspirator in this attempt to suppress our votes,” Democratic U.S. Representative Lucy McBath said at a press conference at the Georgia Capitol on Monday. “By passing this new rule, they are putting up obstacles to the vote count and the certification of the election so that Donald Trump can once again try to plunge our country into chaos.”

Both a Democratic senator and the former chairman of the Fulton County Board of Elections wrote letters to Kemp demanding that the three Trump-aligned members be removed from office for violating the state’s ethics laws. Kemp on Monday asked Republican Attorney General Chris Carr to investigate whether Kemp has the legal authority to investigate the demands.

The Democrats’ lawsuit specifically relies on language added by a rule that requires county election officials to conduct a “reasonable investigation” before certifying results. It also takes aim at a second rule that allows county election officials to “examine all election-related documents created during the administration of the election.”

The lawsuit argues that alleged fraud or misconduct should be handled by the courts, not by county officials, in counting the results, citing more than 100 court rulings from the U.S. state of Georgia.

While the new rules could be interpreted as being consistent with Georgia law and allowing only audits or investigations that would not delay certification, “that was not the intent of the drafters of these rules,” the lawsuit says, citing their testimony before the panel.

The first rule does not define what constitutes a “reasonable investigation,” and the second has “no basis in election law or case law,” the lawsuit says.

It’s unclear whether counties could successfully deny certification. They would face lawsuits asking judges to order county councils to fulfill their legal duties. And it’s unlikely that Fulton County or any of the state’s five other most populous counties, all of which are reliably Democratic, would deny certification. Instead, denials of certification would likely come from smaller, more Republican counties.

In Georgia, authorities were forced to certify rural Coffee County in 2020. In May, Julie Adams, a Republican-appointed member of the Fulton County Board of Elections, refused to certify the primary election results. She filed a lawsuit backed by the Trump-affiliated America First Policy Institute, arguing that county board members had the discretion to refuse certification.

The lawsuit was filed by members of the Board of Elections of several counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area, most of whom were elected by the local Democratic Party, as well as by voters who support Democrats, two Democratic state representatives running for re-election, and the Democratic parties at the state and federal levels.

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