Lisa Rubin writes:

On Tuesday night, as Democrats cheered Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s debut as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, something considerably less joyful was going down in Atlanta.

As my colleague Ja’han Jones explained, Georgia’s State Election Board, a five-member body controlled by fervent Donald Trump loyalists, adopted a rule allowing local election boards to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before certifying election results — a task that, pursuant to Georgia statutory law, has long been understood to be mandatory and ministerial. The State Election Board failed to define what constitutes a “reasonable inquiry” and suggested — again, in contrast to plain language in Georgia law requiring counties to certify this year’s election results by Nov. 12 — that such inquiries could justify failing to certify by that date (or any specific date).

But it gets worse. As good government types and local Democrats sputtered, the Georgia election board wasn’t quite done. Instead, it met again Wednesday because its very newsy vote Tuesday night meant other agenda items went unaddressed. [Continue reading…]