Next Wednesday, members of Georgia’s General Assembly will gather again in Atlanta for a called special session. Special sessions are limited in scope to what the Governor includes in the official call plus potentially a few items allowed under the state’s constitution, such as considering veto overrides.  

Governor Kemp has set an agenda of three items. New maps for 2028 may be considered, the extension of the recent gas tax suspension needs to be ratified, and there remains a pesky issue about voting with machines that count via QR code.

A law passed in 2024 mandated the transition from the current voting machines by July 1^st, 2026.  That’s…in a few weeks.  This is a problem, as the legislature didn’t fund the purchase of new machines nor specify an actual remedy to this self-inflicted problem in this regular session of the General Assembly. 

This new sense of urgency is somewhat of a surprise to many, including a lot of us who spend our time in and around Georgia’s political spheres. It’s on one hand surprising and yet totally not surprising that we’ve ended up where we are.  Let’s break that down.

A noisy and energetic wing of the Republican party is still fixated on litigating the 2020 election while too often ignoring the next one. Conspiracy theories need a boogey man, and many of the folks who have hated electronic voting machines since they were implemented in 2002 – the year Republicans actually won the Governor’s mansion - have met the moment. 

They will point to problems within certain counties who seen to pride themselves on their incompetence in running elections and/or counting ballots as evidence. “Have you SEEN the video tape of them wheeling in suitcases of ballots in Fulton County?!?”

They’ll show you what is currently going on in California where the rules barely exist and audit trails are forbidden. Then they will look at you with the most serious solemnity and declare that the solution is Georgia reverting to paper ballots. 

It’s completely lost in these conversations that moving to a system of voting where ALL ballots would be in cases and have to be transported to central locations in each county to be counted. It’s also lost on them that we currently have paper ballots for in person voting.  

Our paper ballots are machine generated. This take the recount issue such as Florida’s in the 2000 Presidential election off the table.  It wasn’t just about one county’s “hanging chads”.  We literally had some of the highest paid lawyers in the country arguing over whether a circle had to be fully filled in, partially filled in, or marked over with an “X” or a line for a vote to count. Instead, we now have standardized ballots demonstrating clear voter intent for each race. 

You may want to take a second look at your paper ballot printout with this in mind when you vote over the next week. When you’re done at the voting machine and get your printout, take a good look at it.  Yes, it has a QR code for the machine counters to read it quickly.  More importantly, It also has a printout of every vote you are casting.  

These pieces of paper are then fed into a machine that counts the votes. What many don’t appear to understand, however, is that these pieces of paper – paper ballots – are kept for an audit trail. 

A portion of each race is verified after every election to ensure what is printed on a ballot matches the count from the machines.  If necessary, however, a theoretical hand count of all ballots cast is possible, because of the computer generated paper ballots.

A reversion to hand marked paper ballots won’t make this system more secure. Quite the contrary.  It takes the digital record captured at each polling place out of the equation, and makes the integrity of the election solely reliant on the physical security of paper ballots.  

Debates over accurate voting rolls, only citizens voting, or whatever California is doing are not part of this narrow debate.  What legislators must consider is whether to spend money to discard a secure standardized computer generated paper ballot system in favor of less secure, hand marked voter cards with no potential to audit or back up. 

No election is perfect. It’s easy to find problems within any system. 

Solutions need to address actual problems with remedies that make the situation better, not worse. Ditching an secure, effective, and efficient voting system in favor of a weaker one doesn’t solve any real nor perceived problems with Georgia’s voting system. 

Legislators have higher and better uses of their time. Georgians have more pressing needs for their tax dollars. 

Laws are passed based on what citizens demand. It is up to community leaders and everyday voters to understand this process, as well as the drawbacks of certain kneejerk “solutions”. Legislators need to hear from us, too.

Our voting process is high pressure and high stakes because government already has too much power over our lives. Let’s take some of that pressure off the people doing their best to run fair and non-partisan elections, and quit scapegoating technology too many haven’t taken the time to understand.