Georgia’s top court warns post-2024 election lawsuits must clear ‘significant hurdles’

The Georgia Supreme Court sent a dire warning Tuesday to any 2024 election challengers who seek to contest rules or results, saying plaintiffs "must clear significant hurdles" and would be better off resolving lawsuits before voters head to the polls.

"Elections matter. For this reason, parties wanting a court to throw out the results of an election after it has occurred must clear significant hurdles," Justice Nels Stefan David Peterson wrote in an opinion surrounding an effort by the Catoosa County Republican Party to challenge certain candidates on the ballot during the primary election from earlier this year.

Although the Georgia high court's opinion surrounds a less significant election fight unrelated to the 2024 general presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump , the decision matters for any election-related litigation leading up to Election Day on Nov. 5.

After Trump lost Georgia to then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020, at least 14 challenges were filed in the state, including a lawsuit filed against Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Nov. 13 that year. The case sought to find whether Raffensperger "altered the process established by the Georgia legislature for handling defective absentee ballots" when he entered into a March 2020 settlement to resolve a court case brought by the Democratic Party of Georgia and others.

While the district court stated that the claims of a plaintiff in that 2020 suit, a registered voter, could be dismissed for procedural reasons, the court nonetheless ruled on the merits, dismissing the plaintiff's claims under the equal protection clause, elections and electors clauses, and due process clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Dozens of lawsuits contesting the results of the election were filed nationally following Trump's defeat in 2020, and the messaging from the Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday depicts "some impatience for the recent trend of waiting until after an election to complain about the rules," local attorney Andrew Fleischman wrote in a post on X.

The Georgia Supreme Court showing some impatience for the recent trend of waiting until after an election to complain about the rules: https://t.co/TcwYVMc79Y pic.twitter.com/zvAKYDljU5

In a summary of the opinion, Georgia State College of Law professor Anthony Michael Kreis posted to X that the "court will refuse to entertain dilatory election challenges to overturn election results when a party does not do everything within their power to litigate before an election and expeditiously."

Meanwhile, a heated dispute over recent election rule changes by the Republican-dominated Georgia Board of Elections is prepared to head to trial on Oct. 1 over a lawsuit brought by the Democratic National Committee .

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The DNC and other plaintiffs say the rules contradict Georgia's election laws and procedures by allowing election boards to postpone the certification of results, while Republican supporters of the changes say the changes aim to enhance transparency and accuracy in the certification process.

Democratic plaintiffs want to see Georgia's election results certified by Nov. 12. The trial is set to play out as one of the more substantial preelection challenges of the 2024 cycle just weeks before the election, while early voting begins in the state on Oct. 15.