REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE v. ETERNAL VIGILANCE ACTION, INC. (Two Cases)

Before the November 2024 election, Georgia's State Election Board adopted seven new rules covering things like hand-counting ballots, poll watcher access, drop box surveillance, and how election officials certify results. A voter rights organization, its director, and another voter sued, arguing the rules were not authorized by the Election Code and improperly took over lawmaking power that belongs to the General Assembly. A trial court agreed and blocked all seven rules. The Supreme Court of Georgia first decided who was even allowed to sue. It held that organizations suing on behalf of their mission or members could not proceed, but two individual voters could challenge five rules that touched their right to vote or have votes counted. Turning to those five rules, the court overturned an old precedent that had made it easy for agencies to receive vague rulemaking power, and concluded that four of the five rules exceeded what the legislature had authorized. Only the rule requiring video surveillance of ballot drop boxes was upheld. The court sent one voter's separate claim, based on his role as a local election board member, back to the trial court.

Organizations cannot sue over election rules without showing a violation of their own rights, but individual voters have standing to challenge rules touching the right to vote. Applying a reinstated three-step nondelegation test, four of five challenged rules exceeded the SEB's statutory authority, while the drop box video surveillance rule was properly authorized.

The decision narrows who can go to court over state agency action in Georgia, cutting off suits by advocacy groups, and it strikes down four SEB election rules for future elections, including hand counting and expanded document review, while keeping only the drop box surveillance rule in place.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded with direction

1. The court held that under Georgia's Judicial Power Paragraph, a plaintiff must show a violation of their own legal rights, not just a factual harm, to have standing to sue; this ruled out organizational standing based on a 'diversion of resources' theory and ended Georgia's recognition of federal-style associational standing, which had let groups sue on behalf of members.
2. The court found that individual voters have standing only for rules that actually affect casting or counting votes; five of the seven challenged rules met that test (reasonable inquiry, document examination, hand counting, drop box ID, and drop box surveillance), but the poll watcher and daily reporting rules did not, since they don't touch how votes are cast or tallied.
3. The court applied a three-step nondelegation framework asking whether the legislature actually delegated the power at issue, whether the legislature itself had that power, and whether any delegation included clear, judicially enforceable guidelines limiting the agency's discretion.
4. Using that framework, the court overruled its 1990 decision in Dept. of Transp. v. City of Atlanta, which had approved vague guideline language like 'reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest,' because that precedent was inconsistent with older, stricter Georgia cases requiring specific, enforceable limits on agency discretion.
5. Applying the corrected standard, the court concluded that the reasonable inquiry, examination, hand count, and drop box ID rules each went beyond or conflicted with specific Election Code provisions, so they were not properly authorized, while the drop box surveillance rule merely filled a gap consistent with the existing statute and was valid.
6. Because one voter's claim to sue in his capacity as a county election board member raised new questions the trial court had not yet analyzed, the court sent that narrow issue back for further proceedings rather than deciding it in the first instance.

• State Election Board rules
• standing to sue
• nondelegation doctrine
• ballot drop boxes
• hand counting ballots