CNN:

A Georgia judge signaled Tuesday that he sees a need to bring clarity to the meaning of a “vague” new election certification rule approved by Donald Trump allies that critics say will inject chaos into the battleground state after Election Day.

State and national Democrats have sued the GOP-controlled Georgia State Election Board over a pair of rules passed in August that require county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into election results before certifying them and allow them to “examine all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections prior to certification of results.”

During a bench trial in the case on Tuesday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said the “reasonable inquiry” rule “on its face is vague and needs clarification.”

At several other points during the trial, McBurney also raised concerns about the election board changing election rules so close to this year’s contest, saying that “new rules seem to pop up every 20 minutes.”

“And the election is getting closer, not further away,” the judge said, pushing back on an argument from Republicans that intervened in the case to defend the new rules that his hands are tied by a judicial principle established in a 2006 Supreme Court case, Purcell v. Gonzalez. 

The high court said in its decision in that case that federal courts should not change rules “on the eve of an election.” But, the judge said, that puts court in a difficult situation if the rules shouldn’t have been approved in the first place.

“That would mean that there is a window where unreviewable rules can be issued,” McBurney said. “They can be procedurally defective. They can be substantively defective. They can be unconstitutional and they’re incapable of review because this agency, this rulemaking body, says, ‘Oh, we’re within the Purcell window, now’s the perfect time to say let’s count ballots by hand and we know a court can’t look at that new rule because it’s too close to the election.’”

Meanwhile, as Yablon and Clinger conclude: “state courts are not mirroring the U.S. Supreme Court’s strong aversion to pre-election relief. Instead, they have taken a more nuanced and context-specific approach.”