Thurmond v. State Election Board

Georgia first established its State Election Board (SEB) to bring uniformity to election administration in 1964. Since 1968, the SEB consisted of the Georgia Secretary of State who chaired the board, plus four appointed members – one selected by the Georgia House, one by the Georgia Senate, and one each from the Democratic and Republican Parties. In response to the 2020 presidential election results and unsubstantiated allegations of election interference, Georgia’s Republican-controlled General Assembly passed the Election Integrity Act of 2021 (Senate Bill 202), which changed how the chair of the SEB was selected. Instead of the SEB being chaired by the Secretary of State, the General Assembly gave itself the power to elect the chair, increasing the number of seats it names to three – a majority on the five-member board. 

On September 20, 2024, the SEB voted 3-2 to adopt a new election procedure called the “Hand Count Rule,” which was scheduled to go into effect on October 10, 2024. Under this rule, teams of three poll workers at each polling site would be required to open the sealed scanner ballot boxes and individually hand-count every ballot, starting as early as the close of Election Day and continuing through the end of the county certification period. These poll workers would be required to count and recount ballots until they all arrived at the same total and then compare the hand counts to the scanner counts. Any inconsistencies were to be corrected by the precinct poll manager, though no direction was provided to precinct managers as to what measures should be taken or what should happen if the inconsistency could not be corrected.  

On October 2, 2024, Michael Thurmond, then-Chief Executive Officer of DeKalb County, Georgia and the DeKalb County Board of Registrations and Elections filed a lawsuit in DeKalb County Superior Court challenging the Hand Count Rule and two other changes to Georgia’s election rules. The petitioners argued the SEB failed to follow Georgia’s Administrative Procedure Act and asked the court to void the rules. 

On October 9, 2024, the League of Women Voters of Georgia (LWVGA), New Georgia Project, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and Secure Families Initiative, along with several individual Georgia voters filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs’ claims against the Hand Count Rule, arguing the rule would place the burden of conducting additional and unnecessary procedures on poll workers and give election officials cover to refuse to certify results, in the event of counts that were delayed or had slight discrepancies. The brief also argued the SEB exceeded its statutory authority to issue this rule because of the comprehensive procedures in Georgia election law for counting votes and certifying election results. LWVGA and fellow amici further argued that the rule changes would harm Georgia voters, particularly Black voters and other voters of color, and undermine their faith in democracy. 

On October 11, 2024, the petitioners moved for a temporary restraining order to stop the SEB from enforcing the challenged rules. On October 15, 2024, the Hand Count Rule was blocked by a Fulton County Superior Court judge in a challenge brought by the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration. On October 16, the Hand Count Rule and the two other rules challenged by Thurmond and Dekalb County were blocked in another lawsuit, Eternal Vigilance Action v. State of Georgia. The Eternal Vigilance defendants filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia. On October 22, 2024, the court agreed to hear the appeal but denied hearing it on an emergency or expedited basis. On June 6, 2025, the petitioners requested a stay of proceedings, pending the court’s ruling in Eternal Vigilance, after the Dekalb County Superior Court issued an order scheduling trial for early July 2025. 

On June 10, 2025, the court issued its ruling in Eternal Vigilance, invalidating four challenged election rules, including the Hand Count Rule. However, none of the plaintiffs in Eternal Vigilance were found to have standing to challenge two other rules, both of which were challenged by Thurmond and Dekalb County. The court remanded the question of whether election officials had standing to challenge these rules to the trial court. On June 11, 2025, a Dekalb County Superior Court judge stayed proceedings due to the Eternal Vigilance ruling. On July 10, 2025, Thurmond and Dekalb County and moved to extend the stay, arguing that the court’s decision was dispositive only of their challenge to the Hand Count Rule and further proceedings were required to resolve the other challenges. 

LWVGA was represented in this case by the Southern Poverty Law Center.