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The left seems to have no moral qualms about gaslighting as a political strategy, so the Democrat-led campaign falsely accusing Georgia State Election Board members of interfering with the state’s law on certification is unsurprising. But the left’s misleading narrative around certification doesn’t just place Republican election officials in an unfair light, it could also undermine well-established Georgia election law and disrupt another presidential election.

On Aug. 19, the Georgia State Election Board voted 3-2 in favor of a rule that clarifies the process of a complete election canvass. A complete canvass under current Georgia law requires ballot reconciliation to take place before certification, and the proposed rule reiterates that requirement, to the dismay of Democrats. Georgia code expressly states that counties must “compare the registration figure with the certificates returned by the poll officers showing the number of persons who voted in each precinct or the number of ballots cast” before the recording of votes. The law also requires that discrepancies arising during ballot reconciliation be investigated and addressed before the recording of votes.

On Aug. 6, the board also voted to adopt a rule that defined certification as something that happens after election officials conduct a “reasonable inquiry.” This can be assumed by existing Georgia law because the election code already requires election officials to confirm the completion of basic procedures like ballot reconciliation. Like the rule reiterating what constitutes a complete canvass, this rule also did nothing to challenge the certification deadline. 

Ballot reconciliation, investigation, observation, and thus a “reasonable inquiry,” are already reflected in Georgia law, but the corporate media would have you believe that these elements are controversial, midnight-hour switches to the election code. 

An article by CNN falsely claimed “the Georgia State Election Board passed a rule … giving local election officials additional power to investigate ballot counts before certifying the results.” ProPublica published an article entitled “Election Deniers Secretly Pushed Rule That Would Make It Easier to Delay Certification of Georgia’s Election Results.” The article attacked two of the three election experts who defended the rule during the State Election Board meeting for their ties to Trump, but oddly made no mention of the third defender of the rule, the former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. CBS News also published an article entitled “New Republican-backed Georgia rules risk undermining election certification, critics say.” The list goes on, with many other outlets relaying the same talking points and ruthlessly villainizing those seeking to enforce common mechanisms for election integrity.

The reality is that the rule does not grant election officials “additional power” to do anything. The rule does not make it “easier to delay certification of Georgia election results” and does not “undermine election certification.” In fact, the rule affirms the statutory certification deadline as a part of a complete canvass. Some might argue that clarifying the step-by-step legal requirements of a complete canvass makes it easier for election officials to certify results in a timely manner and without hesitation. 

An election official might feel hesitant to sign his name to a legal document swearing to give a perfect return of the results when he has actual knowledge that the election process has not met the minimum requirements, and he has not been able to fulfill his statutory duties up to that point. This is the uncomfortable situation one Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections member faced during the Georgia Presidential Preference Primary. However, if the legal requirements for a complete canvass are emphasized and enforced, this could be avoided, and certifying could be smoother than ever. That’s what these rules hope to accomplish.

But why adopt a rule that merely reiterates what is already required by law? The adoption of this rule was a response to counties’ repeated disregard of the election code. In 2020, Fulton County double-scanned 3,000 ballots, which wasn’t officially acknowledged until years after the election. If ballot reconciliation had taken place, this mistake would not have been possible. 

At the May 8 Georgia State Election Board meeting, it was made clear that Georgia counties are not consistently applying state election law and even members of the State Election Board seemed confused about when ballot reconciliation is supposed to take place. Left-leaning nonprofit groups are also inconsistent in their approach to ballot reconciliation. For example, a report by Protect Democracy argues that certification is a mandatory, nondiscretionary task because there are mechanisms like ballot reconciliation that identify irregularities, making discretionary certification unnecessary. However, a lawyer from the same organization has spoken against the rule enforcing these pre-certification mechanisms, erroneously arguing that a slight change in language could interfere with certification while failing to acknowledge the clear inclusion of the same statutory certification deadline in the rule. 

With every major legacy media outlet suggesting that these rules are contrary to the law instead of reflective of the law, their narrative threatens to engrain the counties’ neglect of proper ballot reconciliation. How Republicans will respond to continued violations in the presidential election process is unknown, but it is reasonable to assume that foregoing the required procedures will inspire lawsuits. The RNC has promised to litigate election violations aggressively. To avoid unnecessary tension and instability, Democrats should abandon misleading claims surrounding Georgia’s election rules and support full compliance with the whole of the law.

Anelise Powers is a policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s national Election Protection Project.