A unanimous Georgia Supreme Court recently weighed in on the ongoing battle over new election rules in Georgia.

The case—Republican National Committee et al v. Eternal Vigilance Action, Inc.[1]—involved seven of the rules Georgia’s State Election Board (SEB) adopted in 2024. These rules touch various parts of the election process, imposing new requirements for the certification of election results, ballot counting, daily reporting, poll watcher access, absentee ballot delivery, and drop box surveillance. In an overall victory for the rules’ challengers (a nonprofit concerned with election integrity, its Executive Director, and an individual voter), the Georgia Supreme Court invalidated four of the SEB’s rules, upheld one, and declined to consider the other two.

The June 10, 2025 decision followed a win for the challengers in the trial court, which ruled that all seven rules lacked statutory authority and violated both the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the state’s nondelegation doctrine.[2] Shortly after that decision, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party requested expedited review by the Georgia Supreme Court, which was denied. As a result, SEB’s rules were not in effect for the 2024 election.

In a move with big implications for future election litigation in Georgia, the court began with multiple doctrinal changes on standing. Several organizations that had intervened as plaintiffs premised their standing on a “diversion of resources theory,” arguing that they could challenge the SEB rules because the rules required the expenditure of time and resources that would otherwise go to efforts more central to their work.[3] But the court rejected this argument. To invoke judicial review in Georgia, an organization must, like other plaintiffs, assert a violation of a legal right.[4] Since the organizations failed to do so, they lacked organizational standing to challenge any of the rules.[5]

Similarly, the court rejected the organizations’ claim of associational standing (standing to assert the rights of their members). The court acknowledged that Georgia precedent had adopted this federal theory of standing into state law.[6] But further review revealed that this theory was “incompatible” with Georgia’s Constitution and “wrongly expanded the power of Georgia courts to resolve certain cases.”[7] Accordingly, and since other stare decisis factors did not favor retaining the incorrect precedent, the court officially overruled it.[8] Going forward, plaintiffs may only assert their own legal rights—not those of other parties.    

Though none of the organizations had standing to challenge the rules, the court concluded that the individual plaintiff voters had standing, so long as the rules implicated their private right to vote.[9] Analyzing each rule, the court found that only five of the seven did. The Drop Box ID Rule, which imposed ID requirements on individuals delivering another’s absentee ballot, presented the possibility that a ballot may not be counted without sufficient identification.[10] So too for the Dropbox Surveillance Rule, since its requirement of constant video surveillance meant ballots dropped in an un-surveilled drop box may not be counted.[11] The Rules governing ballot counting and the certification of election results—the Hand Count Rule, the Reasonable Inquiry Rule, and the Examination Rule—posed a less direct threat to the right to vote, but threatened the rejection of cast votes nonetheless.[12]

Not even the voting plaintiffs had standing to challenge the Poll Watcher or Daily Reporting Rules, however, since those Rules did not involve how votes were cast or counted.[13] Consequently, no plaintiff could challenge these rules and the court did not consider them.

Proceeding to the now five rules at issue, the Supreme Court first disagreed with the trial court’s conclusion that the rules violated the Elections Clause in the U.S. Constitution. The Elections Clause provides that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof . . . .”[14] Since the SEB is not “the Legislature,” the trial court reasoned, the rules lacked constitutional authority.[15] But the Supreme Court rejected this reasoning as contrary to binding precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court.[16]

The Supreme Court also disagreed that the rules violated the Georgia Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine. The trial court found that the statute lacked sufficient guidance to constrain the SEB, meaning its delegation to the SEB was impermissible and could not support the SEB’s rules.[17] On appeal, the challengers argued that the statute giving the SEB the power to promulgate rules to promote “uniform[],” “legal,” “pur[e],” “fair,” and “orderly” elections was no worse than one the Georgia Supreme Court had upheld previously, and which allowed agency action when “reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.”[18] The Supreme Court agreed with the challengers’ reasoning, but responded by overturning the offending precedent, finding it wrongly decided at the time and inconsistent with the requirements of Georgia’s Constitution.[19] Instead, the court followed the three-step nondelegation framework rooted in Georgia’s constitution and case law.[20]

Having settled on the proper approach to nondelegation claims, the court proceeded to the framework’s first step, which asks whether the statute delegates the authority an agency is claiming.[21] The court interpreted the statutory language relevant to each of the five SEB rules and found that four of them were unuathorized:

  • The Examination Rule. The statute requires an investigation if a candidate receives more votes than there are electors in the precinct, or else more votes than the total number of voters or ballots cast in the election.[22] As part of that investigation, the statute directs the superintendent to review “registration and primary or election documents” for the precinct.[23] The court found in this language guidance as to when an investigation should occur (in the event of a numerical mismatch) and what the scope of review could be (documentation relevant to the precinct).[24] Because the rule permitted investigations into things other than excess votes, extended the timeframe during which an investigation could take place, and expanded the scope of review to include reference to “election-related” documentation for other precincts, it exceeded statutory authority.[25]
  • The Hand Count Rule. The statutory language requires poll officers to do one of two things “[a]s soon as the polls are closed and the last elector has voted”: (1) feed ballots through a tabulator, or (2) seal the ballots so they may be delivered to a tabulation center.[26] The Hand Count Rule postponed the tabulation process from “as soon as” the polls close to the day after the Election, however, and required that poll officers remove the ballots from the ballot boxes and hand count them.[27] Because the rule’s requirements differed from the statute’s, the court found the rule unlawful.[28]
  • The Reasonable Inquiry Rule. This rule establishes a definition for what it means to certify the result of an election, providing that certification means “to attest, after reasonable inquiry” that the processes of canvassing and tabulation are complete and that the results of an election are accurate.[29] The court found this “reasonable inquiry” mandate to contradict the relevant statute, which the court interpreted to task the certifier of elections with the computation of votes—not the correction of error or fraud, which the statute left to other officials.[30]
  • The Drop Box ID Rule. This rule requires that individuals delivering an absentee ballot for another—which the statute permits caregivers and certain relatives to do—provide a signature and photo ID and show they are the proper relation to the voter to allow them to deliver the ballot.[31] Because the statute did not impose signature and voter ID requirements in this context, the court found the Rule unauthorized by statute.[32]

Turning to the last rule—the Drop Box Surveillance Rule—the court found it authorized by the statute, which already required that drop boxes “be under constant surveillance” by certain officials or guards.[33] Because the rule merely specified procedures for surveilling drop boxes, it set forth the means by which officials must comply with the statute and was thus a permissible exercise of SEB’s regulatory authority to fill in the gaps of the statute and promote uniformity in compliance.[34] Moreover, the statute provided sufficient guidance to restrain the SEB’s authority to survive a nondelegation challenge.[35]

[1] Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Eternal Vigilance Action, Inc., No. S25A0362, S25A0490, 2025 WL 1633792 (Ga. 2025).

[2] Eternal Vigilance Action, Inc. v. State of Georgia, No. 24cv011558, 2024 WL 4607980 (Ga. Super. Ct. Oct. 16, 2024).

[3] Republican Nat’l Comm., 2025 WL 1633792, at *4.

[4] Id. at *5.

[5] Id.

[6] Id. at *6.

[7] Id. at *6–*7.

[8] Id. at *7.

[9] Id. at *10. The court also found that none of the plaintiffs had standing under so-called “community-stakeholder standing.” Id. at *8.

[10] Id. at *10.

[11] Id.

[12] Id. at *11. One of the plaintiffs also argued that he had standing because he was a member of the Chatham County Board of Elections, and so faced legal consequences if he applied SEB’s rules incorrectly. Id. at *12. While the trial court agreed, the Supreme Court vacated that finding because it raised issues not sufficiently addressed below. Id.

[13] Id.

[14] U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1 (emphasis added).

[15] Eternal Vigilance Action, 2024 WL 4607980, at *5.

[16] Republican Nat’l Comm., 2025 WL 1633792, at *15.

[17] Eternal Vigilance Action, 2024 WL 4607980, at *4.

[18] Republican Nat’l Comm., 2025 WL 1633792, at *19.

[19] Id.

[20] Id. at *16-18.

[21] Id. at *21.

[22] Id. at *22 (citing OCGA § 21-2-493(b)).

[23] Id. at *22 (quoting OCGA § 21-2-493(b)).

[24] Id. at *22.

[25] Id. at *22-23.

[26] Id. at *23 (quoting OCGA § 21-2-485 (1) (A)).

[27] Id. at *23.

[28] Id. at *23–24.

[29] Id. at *24 (quoting Ga. Comp. R. & Regs., r. 183-1-12-.02(1)(c.2)).

[30] Id. at *24; id. at *24 n.28.

[31] Id. at *25 (citing Ga. Comp. R. & Regs., r. 183-1-14-.02(18)).

[32] Id. at *25.

[33] Id. at *25 (quoting OCGA § 21-2-382(c)(1)).

[34] Id. at *26.

[35] Id. at *27.

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