More than 250,000 people voted this Tuesday, October 15 in Georgia for the American presidential election. In 2020, less than 12,000 votes separated Joe Biden and Donald Trump in this state in the southeast of the United States.
The American state of Georgia, one of those where the result of the presidential election could be decided in November, saw a large turnout this Tuesday, October 15, for the first day of early voting, according to the authorities.
And those responsible at the head of these electoral operations will have the obligation to certify the results transmitted to them, a judge ruled on Monday, while the integrity of these elections has transformed into a hobby horse within the American extreme right.
Three weeks before the national vote, Georgia opened polling stations this Tuesday in order to be able to vote physically, without waiting for November 5. Both candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, called on residents to go to the polls.
The number of voters who voted exceeded a record for a first day of early voting, standing at 4 p.m. at 251,899 ballots, according to Gabriel Sterling, a Georgia election official.
Almost everywhere in the United States, voters can vote by mail, or physically in advance, before Tuesday, November 5. More than five million of them have already done so, according to the University of Florida’s count. These electoral operations are taking place while the Georgian justice system is seized of several cases.
On Monday, Judge Robert McBurney rejected the appeal of a Republican election official from Fulton County in Atlanta, the state capital, seeking recognition of her “discretionary” power not to certify the results in the event of suspicion of error or fraud.
Election officials required to certify results in November
Certification is not part of the discretionary powers of election officials, who are required to fulfill this obligation within the time limits prescribed by law, it indicates.
If there is any doubt or concern about the regularity of the results, they must refer it to the competent prosecutor, specifies Robert McBurney.
“If the electoral officials had the latitude, as the applicant claims, to play the role of investigator, prosecutor, jury and judge and thus (by unilaterally concluding an error or fraud) to refuse to certify the results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” he emphasizes.
“Our Constitution and our Electoral Code do not allow this to happen,” he adds.
It is also he who is seized of a challenge to new rules promulgated in September by the State Electoral Commission, favorable to the former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump, which worries the Democratic camp. These new rules include the hand recount of ballots, in addition to that already carried out by machines.
Donald Trump was indicted for attempting to unlawfully overturn the results of the state’s 2020 election.
