A judge in Georgia on Tuesday ruled that county election boards cannot delay or decline to finalize election results, determining that certifying returns is mandatory under state law.

“Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote in his 11-page ruling. “Consequently, 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.”

The ruling, from a closely watched case in a battleground state, is a rebuke to some Republican officials seeking to expand their power over the electoral process in Georgia. The decision comes as early voting kicked off in Georgia on Tuesday.

The case was brought by Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections who refused to certify the results of the state's primary earlier this year. Adams filed two lawsuits after voting against certification, but McBurney dismissed one of them last month.

She asked the judge to declare that her role in certifying elections was "discretionary, not ministerial, in nature."

McBurney rejected that argument, countering that doing so would disenfranchise voters in the state.

“If election superintendents were, as Plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury, and judge and so – because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud – refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced,” McBurney wrote. “Our Constitution and our Election Code do not allow for that to happen.”

Gabriel Sterling, a Republican and one of the state's top election officials, called Tuesday's ruling "great news" and "another step in keeping to guardrails in place to safeguard our elections."