Judge invalidates key parts of Georgia election rules crafted by Trump allies

A Georgia judge invalidated several new election rules Wednesday, saying the measures approved by the state's Republican-controlled Election Board were "unconstitutional" and in violation of state law.

The ruling, handed down by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, applies to seven rules, including a hand-count rule for Election Day ballots and rules tied to certifying results.

Cox wrote that the five-member board, which includes three officials lauded by former President Donald Trump, "had no authority to implement these rules" and that the measures were “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.”

The Georgia secretary of state's office and the State Election Board did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday night.

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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney on Tuesday blocked the rule requiring that ballots be hand-counted on Election Day, which critics have argued would create delays in reporting the final results. McBurney also ruled that the state’s county election boards could not refuse to certify election results.

The lawsuit was filed by a pair of Georgia voters, including former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner, who leads the election policy advocacy group Eternal Vigilance Action, which is also named as a plaintiff in the suit. Their attorneys said in a filing last month that the board’s passage of the rules “risks destabilizing Georgia’s voting, vote counting, and vote certification process.”

Turner lauded the ruling Wednesday night on X.

“This is a victory for the Constitution and the principle of separation of powers,” he wrote. “Every conservative should see this as a win and significant pushback on an unelected board making law. We thank Judge Cox for efficiently issuing his ruling.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented civil rights groups that intervened in the case, called the ruling “a big victory for voting rights.”

The state's new election rules have also faced significant criticism and legal challenges from the Democratic National Committee and the state Democratic Party, which sued the Election Board over the new rules in August.

Voters in the battleground state, which Trump narrowly lost to Joe Biden in 2020, began heading to the polls for in-person early voting Tuesday. An election official at the secretary of state’s office said more than 300,000 ballots had been tallied after polls closed on the first day, breaking the record set on the first day of early voting in the 2020 contest.

Trump and more than a dozen of his allies, including top officials from his administration, were indicted last year in connection with attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden in Georgia. The case has been on hold over efforts to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as prosecutor.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com