The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by national and state Republicans to immediately reinstate recently passed election rules that a judge had ruled were invalid.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox last week ruled that the State Election Board didn’t have the authority to adopt the new rules, and declared them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party had appealed that ruling to Georgia’s highest court. They asked that it be handled in an expedited manner and for the rules to be reinstated while the appeal was pending.

The Supreme Court unanimously declined the request for expedited handling and declined to put Cox’s order on hold. The court’s order says that once the appeal is docketed it will “proceed in the ordinary course,” which means it will likely take months before there’s a ruling.

The three-person Republican majority on the State Election Board, which was praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally in Atlanta in August, voted to adopt multiple rules in August and September over the objections of the board’s lone Democrat and the nonpartisan chair. The controversial new rules met resistance from the start, not least from local election officials who worried about changes so close to the general election. But Tuesday’s order may mark the end of the legal fight over election rules in this critical battleground state — at least until after the election.

The rules that Cox declared invalid included three that have gotten a lot of attention. One would require three poll workers to count ballots — not votes — by hand once polls close. The other two had to do with the process to certify county election results.

Democrats and some voting rights groups had raised concerns that the rules could be used by allies of Trump to slow or deny certification or election results, or to cast doubt on results if the former president loses the presidential election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

While some prominent Republicans in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have criticized the flurry of last-minute rules the State Election Board introduced, the state and national Republican parties have been supportive. They have said the rules promote transparency and accountability in the state’s elections.

Cox’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, an organization founded and led by former state Rep. Scot Turner, a Republican. The suit argued that the State Election Board overstepped its authority in adopting the seven rules. In addition to invalidating the rules, he ordered the State Election Board to immediately inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Turner said he was glad for the election workers, who will not have to be trained on new election rules with just two weeks to go before Election Day. Many county election officials had expressed concern over the tight timeline for implementing the rules, saying they risked causing confusion for poll workers and undermining public confidence in the election results.