Georgia lawmakers weigh seismic changes to voting equipment | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Ahead of the momentous 2020 presidential election, Georgia’s state leaders faced a choice. The state’s voting system prior to that year consisted of 27,000 electronic voting machines that had been in use since 2002, which were reaching the end of their life and needed to be replaced. Legislators at the time voted for Georgia’s new election system largely along party lines, with Democrats largely favoring hand-marked paper ballots that require voters to fill out ballots with pencils or pens, and Republicans supporting ballot-marking devices, which still required voters to make selections on a machine but produced a paper ballot that would be scanned to tabulate the results. The new machines, purchased for $107 million and manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems, were used statewide in Georgia for the first time during the 2020 election. But nearly six years later, Democrats and Republicans have seemingly found themselves on opposite ends of a similar debate. Some GOP lawmakers are now leading a push to replace ballot-marking devices with hand-marked paper ballots, and there are Democrats who are cautioning against abandoning Georgia’s current ballot-marking device system before the end of the state’s 10-year contract in 2029. Read Article

Georgia Settlement Forces Transparency from Election Deniers on State Election Board | Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket

Georgia’s election board has agreed to stop conducting its business in secret after a settlement with a government watchdog group. The deal represents a major win for transparency as Republican election deniers on the board ramp up efforts to restrict voting ahead of the 2026 elections. The State Election Board (SEB) ended a year-long lawsuit by American Oversight Wednesday after the group had exposed how board members used private emails and messaging apps to discuss election rules in violation of the state’s Open Records and Open Meetings Acts. Read Article

Georgia: Trump justice department seeks 2020 election records from Fulton County | Sam Levine/The Guardian

The justice department on Thursday asked election officials in Fulton county, Georgia, to turn over records related to the 2020 election, a request that underscores how the administration is trying to revive one of the president’s biggest falsehoods about the election he lost five years ago. Investigators have cleared Fulton county of malfeasance in 2020. Nonetheless, a Republican majority on the board voted to reopen the investigation last year. On the night of the 2024 presidential election, the board voted to subpoena a slew of documents. This summer, the board passed a resolution asking the justice department to intervene and help them get the documents. The subpoenas issued last year seek records related to voter lists, chain of custody forms, ballot images, security seals and ballot scanner paperwork. Read Article

Georgia’s Sweeping Anti-Voting Law Suppressed Black Votes, New Data Shows | Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket

Four years after GOP lawmakers in Georgia enacted one of the most aggressive anti-voting laws in the country, new evidence filed in federal court shows that Senate Bill 202 (SB 202) has drastically deepened racial inequalities in voting access in the state. The findings came in a recent filing by voting advocates challenging the law, and they were drawn from 2024 election data and expert testimony. They indicate that more than 1.6 million registered voters faced increased barriers because of the law, with Black and minority voters bearing the biggest brunt. Read Article

Georgia will continue to use election equipment under Liberty Votes ownership, spokesperson says | Chase McGee/Georgia Public Broadcasting

Dominion Voting Systems, the company contracted to supply Georgia’s elections equipment, has been sold to a former Republican elections director. In 2019, Georgia entered a 10-year contract with Dominion and has since spent more than $100 million on election infrastructure. During the 2020 election, the company was plagued by baseless conspiracy theories, which alleged that the voting machines rigged ballots in favor of then-candidate Joe Biden. Dominion’s new owner, Scott Leiendecker of Missouri-based Liberty Votes, wrote in a message that his company was “committed to transparency, independent audits, and verifiable paper records,” echoing challenges to past elections. Read Article

Georgia: Judge extends deadline for naming new prosecutor in election interference case | Olivia Rubin/ABC News

A judge on Wednesday extended the deadline for a replacement to be named in place of District Attorney Fani Willis in the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others. Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee extended the deadline to Nov. 14, after the group tasked with finding the replacement said they needed additional time, in part due to the case’s complexity. McAfee’s original order gave the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia just 14 days to appoint a replacement. Read Article

Georgia: A squabbling State Election Board struggles after State Supreme Court ruling | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When it’s not busy bickering, the State Election Board keeps trying to insert itself into Georgia’s voting process even after the state Supreme Court reduced its power this spring. The board’s two-day meeting last week was marked by arguments over manhood, attempts to subpoena ballots from the 2020 election and efforts to end no-excuse absentee voting. The Republican-controlled board also debated a rule that would give itself the power to eliminate Georgia’s voting touchscreens, fought over the chair’s authority, and proposed that lawmakers shorten voting deadlines for military and overseas voters. All these squabbles came after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the board lacks the ability to create new election rules — such as statewide hand ballot counts and inquiries before certifying results — that go further than state laws. The high court said only legislators elected by the people can make those kinds of laws. Read Article

Georgia election officials press lawmakers for swift funding action | Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat

Lawmakers who want to overhaul the way Georgians vote heard a consistent message Thursday from election chiefs. Hurry up! And give us money. A law backed by Republicans in the General Assembly outlaws the Quick Response (QR) codes that the state’s voting machines use to transfer voter intent into each polling place’s database. Poll workers will have to use a different method starting July 1, and the legislature has yet to identify it — or pay for it. Local election chiefs and poll workers told a House study committee that convened at Savannah Technical College Thursday that they will need months to train workers. Read Article

Georgia Republican Party pursues goals of reducing early and absentee voting | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Spearheaded by a 2020 Republican elector for President Donald Trump, the Georgia Republican Party is pitching an agenda to get rid of a week of early voting, end no-excuse absentee voting and eliminate automatic voter registration. The party brought its wish list to a Republican-led legislative study committee that will soon recommend changes to state election laws. Republican Party leaders have said for years that they want to make it “easy to vote and hard to cheat,” but the party’s goals would reduce voting options for the 4 million voters who cast early or absentee ballots in last year’s presidential election. Democrats and voting rights groups say the GOP’s priorities would make it harder for Georgia voters to cast their ballots and would perpetuate policies driven by five years of grievances since Trump’s narrow loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Read Article

Georgia: Bipartisan support grows for using hand-marked paper ballots | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In a rare show of bipartisanship in Georgia elections, a few prominent Democratic lawmakers are supporting a Republican effort to move toward hand-marked paper ballots. U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson is the most prominent Georgia Democrat so far to embrace the Republican proposal for a test-run of filling out ballots by hand instead of by machine during this November’s elections. Although Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office quickly rejected the idea this week, state lawmakers could consider bills for hand-marked paper ballots when they return to the Capitol in January. “It’s time for Georgia elections to be conducted free from the substantial threat of undetectable electronic manipulation,” said Johnson, a Democrat from Lithonia. “Hand-marked paper ballots will eliminate that threat.” Read Article

Georgia: Judge rejects challenge to election law provisions related to absentee ballots | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

A judge has rejected a challenge to two provisions of a Georgia election law related to absentee ballot applications. The provisions were part of a sweeping elections overhaul passed by Republican state lawmakers in Georgia in 2021, months after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. Advocacy groups and the Department of Justice under Biden sued to challenge various aspects of the law. The ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee focused on the two absentee ballot provisions that were challenged by nonprofit groups devoted to increasing voter turnout. One of the provisions prohibits sending voters absentee ballot applications with the voter’s required information already filled in. The other bars the sending of an absentee ballot to anyone who has already requested one. Read Article

Georgia Republican lawmakers push for hand-marked ballots in November election | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Key Georgia lawmakers Tuesday called for a rapid test-run of hand-marked paper ballots in this year’s elections, switching from touchscreens in some polling places. The rush to try paper ballots filled out by hand follows mounting pressure from President Donald Trump, conservatives and election security activists who oppose electronic voting touchscreens. A switch would comply with part of a state law passed last year requiring the elimination of computerized QR codes from ballots by July 1, 2026. Under their proposal, Raffensperger would ask counties and cities to voluntarily participate in the trial of hand-marked paper ballots during the election for Public Service Commission on Nov. 4. Raffensperger has defended the security and accuracy of Georgia’s voting system, saying audits repeatedly show Georgia’s vote counts are correct. But he didn’t immediately comment Tuesday on the lawmakers’ request. Read Article

Georgia’s mass voter registration cancellation puts some registered voters at risk | Mark Niesse and Phoebe Quinton Phoebe Quinton/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Marcus Jacobs-King is a registered Georgia voter — for now. But he’s about to lose his ability to vote because he hasn’t cast a ballot in more than a decade. Jacobs-King is one of 478,000 people whose Georgia voter registrations are scheduled for cancellation this week because they haven’t participated in recent elections or moved away. “I’m concerned about it. Like most people, I want my voting rights and want to make a difference,” said Jacobs-King, a 35-year-old from Fairburn who works in the cargo industry. “In most cases, I was busy and had to do something and couldn’t get to vote soon enough.” Georgia’s mass cancellation of inactive voter registrations this year — one of the largest in U.S. history — targets people who likely moved away and didn’t vote in the last two general elections. But the cancellation effort comes with a risk that eligible voters could get swept up in the process. Read Article

Georgia’s Election Chief Brad Raffensperger Makes a Comeback | Cameron McWhirter/The Wall Street Journal

Five years ago, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger was banished to the political wilderness. Donald Trump blamed the mild-mannered election chief for his narrow 2020 Georgia defeat, branding him a RINO (Republican in Name Only), “incompetent and strange.” Death threats poured in. GOP senators demanded he resign for reaffirming, after recounts and audits, that Trump lost the battleground state. The attacks stunned Raffensperger, a businessman and devout Christian who came late to public life. One consultant dubbed him “Dead Brad Walking.” Yet something unexpected happened on the way to his demise: He not only survived, winning re-election in 2022, but has become a serious contender in Georgia politics. Read Article

Georgia Election Board seeks DOJ aid to again investigate 2020 election | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Three right-wing members of the State Election Board have revived a fight over the 2020 presidential election and called for President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to intervene. The surprise move by the Republican board members — the same three praised by Trump as “pit bulls” during a campaign rally last fall — gives new life to skepticism of the president’s narrow loss in Georgia in 2020. While many elected Republicans in Georgia have said they want to move on from 2020 after Trump’s undisputed win last year, the State Election Board remains focused on its questions about Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 recount. Although multiple recounts, state investigations and court cases upheld the 2020 election, Trump’s supporters continue to make unproven allegations of fraud. Read Article

Georgia Election Board seeks DOJ aid to again investigate 2020 election | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Three right-wing members of the State Election Board revived a fight over the 2020 presidential election Wednesday and called for President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to intervene. The surprise move by the Republican board members — the same three praised by Trump as “pit bulls” during a campaign rally last fall — gives new life to skepticism of the president’s narrow loss in Georgia in 2020. While many elected Republicans in Georgia have said they want to move on from 2020 after Trump’s undisputed win last year, the State Election Board remains focused on its questions about Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 recount. Although multiple recounts, state investigations and court cases upheld the 2020 election, Trump’s supporters continue to make unproven allegations of fraud. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers consider more election changes ahead of 2026 | Mark Niesse and Michelle Baruchman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The 2026 elections may seem like a long way away, but that’s not how state lawmakers see it. Plans — from new voting machines to even more new voting laws — are already underway as a special legislative committee dominated by Republican lawmakers met for the first time Tuesday. Members of the House Study Committee on Election Procedures are considering replacing Georgia’s touchscreen voting system, reviewing voter registration accuracy and complying with a state law that requires removal of inscrutable QR codes from ballots by July 1. Meanwhile, several legislators angling for higher office are looking to boost their resumes — including committee Chairman Tim Fleming, who recently filed paperwork to begin raising money to run for secretary of state. Read Article

Georgia election results must be certified, Court of Appeals rules | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Election board members are required to certify election results, even if they distrust the outcome, according to a Georgia Court of Appeals decision. The decision resolves a dispute that overshadowed the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, when the State Election Board passed rules calling for an “inquiry” and more documents before signing off on results. The Georgia Supreme Court recently rejected the board’s rules. The unanimous order, issued last week by a three-judge panel, says Georgia law demands that election boards make results official. Any doubts about fraud or irregularities can then be reported to prosecutors, the appeals court ruled. The decision confirms a Fulton County judge’s ruling last October that election boards have a duty to approve the votes of the people. Read Article

Georgia: Running a low-turnout runoff election could cost $100 per vote | Jeff Amy/Associated Press

Miller County Election Supervisor Jerry Calhoun says he’s not sure anyone will vote in an upcoming Democratic primary runoff. After all, the southwest Georgia county only recorded one vote in the June 17 Democratic primary for the state Public Service Commission among candidates Keisha Waites, Peter Hubbard and Robert Jones. Statewide turnout for the primary on June 17 reached just 2.8% of Georgia’s 7.4 million active registered voters. That includes more than 15,000 people who likely voted for Blackman and didn’t have their votes counted. But the Democratic runoff might struggle to reach 1% turnout statewide. And counties could spend $10 million statewide to hold the election, based on a sampling of some county spending. That could be more than $100 per vote. Read Article

Georgia Supreme Court rejects State Election Board voting rules | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The State Election Board exceeded its authority by passing new voting rules last year, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously ruled Tuesday, limiting the Republican-led board’s power. The 96-page decision upholds a lower court decision that invalidated rules that would have required hand counts of ballots and election inquiries. The board’s efforts to change Georgia’s voting rules before the presidential election attracted national controversy, highlighting attempts to alter procedures that could affect vote counts. “Although it is not certain that these rules would actually lead to the rejection of votes that have been cast, the threatened violation of a plaintiff’s rights is sufficient to establish standing” that they were able to sue, Chief Justice Nels Peterson wrote. “The SEB can pass rules to implement and enforce the election code, but it cannot go beyond, change or contradict the (the law).” Read Article

Georgia: High-profile lawyers face lasting consequences of election fraud claims | Rosie Manins/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The consequences of supporting President Donald Trump when he cried foul over his loss in the 2020 election are still being felt by several high-profile attorneys with Georgia ties. Disbarment, imprisonment and legal sanctions are among the penalties doled out to Rudy Giuliani, McCall Calhoun, Sidney Powell and Lin Wood for their staunch support of Trump and his debunked 2020 election fraud theories. Wood, who gave up his law license in 2023, said the attacks and investigations he has faced around the country in association with the voting fraud allegations have not lessened his support of Trump. Read Article

Georgia: Federal court might revive lawsuit claiming mass challenges violate Voting Rights Act | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A three-judge federal court panel spent an hour in a downtown Atlanta courthouse Tuesday hearing arguments from attorneys about whether a conservative Texas organization’s mass voting challenges during a 2021 runoff violated the federal Voting Rights Act by intimidating minority voters. Plaintiff Fair Fight Action, founded by Stacey Abrams, argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones erred in ruling last year that True the Vote’s challenge to 365,000 Georgia voters’ eligibility did not constitute intimidation prior to historic Democratic Senate victories in Georgia when Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff prevailed in the Jan. 5, 2021 runoff. At least one of the judges expressed skepticism about the soundness of the lower court ruling. Mass voter challenges have been a mainstay in Georgia since the 2020 presidential election, when Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Republican Donald Trump by about 12,000 votes in the state. Read Article

Georgia fails to make election security upgrades with midterms looming  | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This was supposed to be the year Georgia got election security upgrades in time for the 2026 midterms, featuring high-profile races for U.S. Senate and governor. Instead, election security advocates on both the right and left got nothing. Despite lawmakers’ promise — written into state law — to eliminate ballot QR codes, they didn’t appropriate any money to get it done. QR codes contain voters’ choices on ballots but aren’t readable by the human eye. Nor did lawmakers fund an upgrade to Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines that would have patched vulnerabilities in time for the midterms. And a proposal to switch to paper ballots filled out by hand will have to wait at least until next year — and likely longer. Read Article

Georgia elections bill dies, leaving absentee ballot drop off before Election Day intact | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia House let an elections overhaul bill die Friday night, failing to take a vote on proposals that would have withdrawn the state from a voter registration accuracy organization and banned absentee ballot drop-off the weekend before Election Day. The bill’s defeat marks the first year since Donald Trump’s narrow loss in 2020 that Georgia Republicans haven’t changed state election laws. House leaders never called the bill up for a vote before the General Assembly ended this year’s legislative session. Instead, the House created a study committee to review Georgia’s touchscreen voting equipment, a possible switch to hand-marked paper ballots and voter registration accuracy. Read Article

Georgia election security lawsuit dismissed after 7-year battle | Mark Niesse and David Wickert/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge has dismissed an epic court case challenging Georgia’s touchscreen voting system, ending the seven-year lawsuit that uncovered election security vulnerabilities and a breach in Coffee County. U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg closed the case Monday but cited “substantial concerns” about Georgia’s voting technology, which uses touchscreens to print paper ballots. The case was a major legal test of Georgia’s voting technology, manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems and installed months before the 2020 election. The lawsuit alleged that the voting technology is dangerously vulnerable to tampering, hacks or programming errors that could change the outcome of an election. Read Article

Georgia Senate GOP muscles through election overhaul to allow hand-marked paper ballots | Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder

A pair of election bills the Georgia Senate passed Wednesday propose new State Election Board powers, remove Georgia from multi-state voter rolls sharing databases and allow voters to request hand-marked paper ballots. The Senate voted along party lines Wednesday for the sweeping voting rules changes proposed in House Bill 397 as well as Senate Bill 214, which aims to encourage voters to use pencils or pens to complete ballots instead of electronic voting machines as is the primary option now. Sen. Sally Harrell, an Atlanta Democrat, cautioned against rushing through a significant change in the state’s election system at this late stage in the legislative process, which could result in further financial mismanagement. Friday is the last day of the 2025 Georgia General Assembly. Harrell wondered aloud why Republican senators rejected her amendment proposing hand-marked paper ballots when lawmakers voted in 2019 to switch to an electronic voting system. The state has spent more than $107 million on the Dominion Voting Systems that have been used in statewide elections since 2020. Read Article

 

Georgia Republicans backtrack on some election rules after sharp criticism | Jeff Amy/Associated Press

Georgia lawmakers are retreating from election proposals that could have allowed a Donald Trump-aligned state board to strike thousands of challenged voters from the rolls and would have required polling officials to count the number of ballots by hand. House Bill 397 was rewritten to remove those provisions before it was passed Thursday by the Senate Ethics Committee, sending it to the full Senate for more debate. The bill still seeks to force the state to leave the Electronic Records Information Center. Some question the funding and motives of that multistate group, which tries to maintain accurate voter rolls. But Georgia now would not be required to exit until mid-2027 instead of within months, as was earlier proposed. Read Article

Georgia is planning one of the largest cancellations of voter registrations in U.S. history | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia election officials plan to cancel about 455,000 inactive voter registrations this summer, one of the largest registration removals in U.S. history. More than half the registrations scheduled for cancellation were identified by a 24-state organization called ERIC, which reports when a voter has moved and is no longer eligible to vote in Georgia. The mass cancellation by the Georgia secretary of state’s office arrives as conservative critics of the state’s voter registration list allege it’s inaccurate and vulnerable to voter fraud. They say ERIC hasn’t been effective in finding outdated registrations among the state’s 8.3 million registered voters. Read Article

Georgia Supreme Court questions State Election Board on last-minute voting rule changes | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Supreme Court debated Wednesday whether the State Election Board went too far when it attempted to pass new voting rules weeks before last year’s election. The case tests whether the board’s right-wing majority had the power to require election inquiries and hand counts of ballots without laws passed by the Georgia General Assembly. While a judge’s order stopped those proposals from taking effect, the question remained about the extent of the board’s power. Justices on the state’s highest court on Wednesday often interrupted attorneys to ask whether the State Election Board has the authority to create new policies. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers keep election bill alive so they can change it | Mark Niesse/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Late at night in the Georgia House last week, representatives pushed through a hastily rewritten elections bill with little notice, less debate and no hint of its significance. This short bill is called a “vehicle” — a piece of legislation that can be amended to include very different election proposals, some of which never received a hearing or committee vote. House Bill 397, which passed the House and awaits action in the Senate, creates a process to remove members of the State Election Board. But Republicans might alter it to include ideas that did not survive last week’s deadline for bills to clear at least one legislative chamber, such as prohibiting voters from turning in their absentee ballots in-person the weekend before Election Day, banning last-minute election rules and a plan to withdraw Georgia from a national voter registration accuracy organization. Read Article