Since 2020, there have been at least 20 instances in eight states of election officials refusing to certify election results.
The first red flag came in 2022, when county commissioners in 🔹Otero county, New Mexico, refused to certify the results of a primary election,
citing vague concerns about voting equipment.
The secretary of state eventually went to court to force the commissioners to certify the election.
In July of this year, two Republicans on the county commission in 🔹Washoe county, Nevada
– a key county in a battleground state
– refused to certify its primary vote, setting off alarms.
The commissioners who refused to certify eventually reversed themselves.
Nevada’s secretary of state, Cisco #Aguilar, has since asked the state supreme court to clarify that county commissioners have an obligation to certify votes.
Sometimes election officials who refuse to certify have pointed to mistakes that happened during the election, even though they did not affect the outcome.
In other cases, like Adams’s in Georgia, officials have refused to certify to protest about what they view as unfair laws.
While courts would probably force recalcitrant officials to certify the vote, significant damage could still be caused.
“You can force certification through legal mechanisms, [but] those events tend to be like rocket fuel for conspiracy theories and misinformation and undermining confidence in the election.
So there’s damage done even where certification is eventually forced,” said Berwick, the "Protect Democracy" lawyer.
The #timeline for certifying the vote is important because,
under federal law,
👉states must have an official election result by 11 December,
six days before the electoral college meets.
💥Delaying certification efforts at the local level could put states at risk of missing that deadline.
“If we get past that deadline, it opens up a lot of questions, like tricky legal questions and room for shenanigans,” Berwick said.
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