Free Insider: Your Midterm Gets Certified Under State Law. Georgia's Deadline Is Nov. 20.

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BTP Insider · Election Room The issue in three numbers. Nov. 19 Arizona county canvass deadline Nov. 20 Georgia certifies by 5 p.m. 3-2 Washoe County vote against certifying, 2024

If you spent 2024 learning the Electoral Count Reform Act, here is the catch: it does not touch your midterm. The law that Congress rewrote in December 2022 tells a governor to issue a certificate of ascertainment for presidential electors no later than six days before the electors meet. In 2024 that deadline was Dec. 11. That deadline covers presidential electors and nothing else.

No president is on the ballot on Nov. 3. Your House race, your Senate race and your governor get certified under state canvass law, county by county, on dates most voters have never seen. This week the Election Room reads those dates, and the three times a county board tried to say no.

The calendar that decides it

The first three dates come from the statutes themselves, recomputed for a Nov. 3 election. The last two are what happened the last time boards tested the rule.

Georgia's deadline has one escape hatch written into it. A superior court judge can move it "for just cause." A county board member cannot.

Three boards said no

Otero County, New Mexico, June 2022. The commission refused to certify its primary over machine claims nobody backed with proof. The Secretary of State went to the New Mexico Supreme Court, which ordered certification. On June 17 the board certified 2-1.

Vickie Marquardt and Gerald Matherly voted yes. Couy Griffin voted no and said so plainly: "My vote to remain a no isn't based on any evidence."

A man with a vote on your ballot count said out loud that evidence had nothing to do with it. Marquardt said she voted yes because she feared criminal charges, Source NM and CNN reported. The law, not the facts, moved her.

Cochise County, Arizona, the same year. Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby delayed the canvass. Both were indicted on felony interference and conspiracy counts. Judd pleaded guilty in October 2024 to a misdemeanor, failure or refusal to perform duty, and got 90 days of unsupervised probation and a $500 fine, AZPM and the Arizona Mirror reported.

The Arizona Court of Appeals called the canvass "strictly an administrative action" with no discretion in it, and as of May 2025 Crosby was ordered to stand trial.

Washoe County, Nevada, July 2024. Commissioners Herman, Clark and Andriola voted 3-2 against certifying primary recount results. Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Attorney General Aaron Ford petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court. A week later, on July 16, Andriola and Clark switched, and the board certified 4-1 with Herman still opposed, the Nevada Current and the Nevada Independent reported.

Georgia wrote the answer down

In October 2024, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled in Julie Adams' suit that "no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance." CNN, CBS and PBS reported the ruling on Oct. 15.

Adams appealed and lost. On July 2, 2025, the Georgia Court of Appeals, in Adams v. Fulton County, No. A25A0685, held that "Adams' contention that the trial court erred by declaring she had a mandatory duty to certify election results is without merit." The court went further: "even if the superintendent discovers any error or fraud in the computation of votes, the superintendent 'shall certify the votes.'"

That opinion is the most important page in this issue. AJC, Fox 5 and WABE covered it. Most people who will argue about certification after Nov. 3 have probably never read it. Read it before they do.

Georgia's fight had two more rulings that week in 2024, and they get blurred together. On Oct. 15, McBurney blocked the State Election Board's hand-count rule in a case Cobb County's election board brought. On Oct. 16, Judge Thomas Cox Jr. struck seven State Election Board rules, including the "reasonable inquiry" certification rule, as beyond the board's power. Three rulings, two judges, one direction.

My side does this too

I'm a Democrat, so let me say the uncomfortable part. This rule binds us the same way. If a Democrat on a county board in November smells something wrong with a Republican win, the Georgia court already answered her: even error or fraud in the count does not let her refuse.

She certifies, and the fight goes somewhere else. I don't get to cheer a mandatory duty when it stops Couy Griffin and call it tyranny when it stops someone I like.

The best case for letting boards say no

The strongest argument on the other side is real. County boards sit closest to the count. They see the broken machine, the missing batch, the pollbook that doesn't match.

Turn them into a rubber stamp and you remove the one set of local eyes with a vote. A board member who refuses is, in this telling, the smoke alarm.

Here's where it breaks. In the cases above, refusing never found anything. Otero and Washoe both ended with the boards certifying the results. In Cochise, the court said the board had no discretion to use, and one supervisor pleaded guilty to failing to do her job.

The smoke alarm went off three times, and three times the house was not on fire. Griffin told you why himself.

Your homework before Nov. 3

Find your county's canvass board. Look up who sits on it and when it meets after the election. If you're in Arizona, the county deadline is Nov. 19 and the state's is Nov. 23. If you're in Georgia, the Secretary of State's is 5 p.m. on Nov. 20.

Those meetings are public. Watch one.

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Sources

• Cornell LII, 3 U.S.C. 5, as amended by the Electoral Count Reform Act, read Sept. 2026.

• Campaign Legal Center, ECRA implementation explainer, Jan. 2023.

• CNN, on electors meeting Dec. 17, 2024, Dec. 2024.

• FindLaw, O.C.G.A. 21-2-499, read Sept. 2026.

• Arizona Legislature, A.R.S. 16-642 and A.R.S. 16-648, read Sept. 2026.

• Source NM, Otero County votes 2-1 to approve primary results, June 17, 2022.

• CNN, on Otero County's certification, June 17, 2022; NM Political Report, June 16, 2022.

• AZPM, on Peggy Judd's plea, Oct. 21, 2024; Arizona Mirror, on the Judd plea, Oct. 2024, and on Tom Crosby, May 2, 2025; KJZZ, Jan. 6 and Feb. 11, 2025.

• Nevada Current, Washoe County Commission reverses course, July 17, 2024; Nevada Independent, July 2024; Washington Post, July 11, 2024.

• CNN, CBS News and PBS NewsHour, on Judge McBurney's ruling in Adams' suit, Oct. 15, 2024.

• Georgia Court of Appeals, Adams v. Fulton County, No. A25A0685, July 2, 2025; AJC, Fox 5 and WABE coverage, July 2025.

• Georgia Recorder, on Judge Cox striking seven State Election Board rules, Oct. 16, 2024; NPR/WSIU, on the hand-count ruling, Oct. 15, 2024.

Burn Notice: A county board gets to count your vote. It does not get to vote on it.

Michael