Georgia: Election workers prepare for early voting as talk of DOJ ‘intervention’ leaves advocates unsettled | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

As Georgia election administrators complete routine logic and accuracy testing on voting machines, a request from the State Election Board’s executive director for Department of Justice "intervention" has drawn severe criticism from voting rights advocates and congressional lawmakers. The executive director's letter petitioned federal authorities to compel voting software updates and intervene in state election administration ahead of early voting, prompting advocates to warn against potential federal overreach or poll monitoring. Congressional Democrats condemned the request as an unauthorized attempt to sow public distrust, while local election directors emphasized that rigorous pre-election testing confirms machines are functioning accurately. Read Article

Georgia: Proposal to require election workers to ‘shuffle’ ballots at the polls fails to find support | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Georgia’s State Election Board rejected an emergency proposal that would have required poll workers to collect ballots in secure boxes and manually shuffle them before scanning, aiming to protect voter secrecy ahead of the upcoming midterms. Proponents argued the rule was necessary after a researcher used artificial intelligence on public ballot records to link voters to specific ballots, but board members and local administrators warned the last-minute change would spark widespread confusion, increase costs, and drive away poll workers. Read Article

Georgia election board pushes back on GOP plan to fix voting system flaw | Sudhin Thanawala/Associated Press

The Georgia State Election Board has pushed back on an emergency proposal by the Republican National Committee and state GOP to reconfigure election software just weeks before early voting begins. Two Republican board members on the board spoke out against their party’s last-minute plan to address ballot-privacy flaws, warning that rushing through software changes on the eve of the midterms would "do more harm than good" and trigger administrative chaos. Consequently, the board adjourned without taking a vote, halting the GOP's effort to force an immediate overhaul of the state's voting system. Read Article

Georgia: Three counties flagged by Trump administration for using non-English election materials | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

At least three Georgia counties were listed on an internal memo of jurisdictions across the country that offer election materials in languages other than English, according to internal records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb counties were all listed in the report, which was emailed to a number of top officials at the department in December, though the memo noted there could be other jurisdictions in the state that translate election materials. The email said the list was “outlining requirements for prosecution of voter related charges,” and was signed by the department’s acting director of border policy, though the official’s name is redacted. Only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote in American elections, but advocates for immigrant communities in Georgia say some naturalized citizens may struggle to understand ballots written in English. Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act requires local jurisdictions to offer ballot access in languages besides English whenever there are either 10,000 residents or more than 5% of the population who speak a given language and lack English proficiency. Read Article

Georgia: ‘It’s really embarrassing that this is still a possibility’ — AI could exploit a flaw in voting equipment and match voters to their ballots | AP News

Security researchers say rapid advances in artificial intelligence are making it more critical to address a flaw in Georgia’s voting equipment that can allow voters to be matched to their ballots after they have been cast. The system’s vulnerability has been drawing increased attention, with election security advocates criticizing state election officials for failing to fix it before the November elections. Georgia election officials say they have taken steps to address the potential harm, but some advocates say the state is not going far enough. Other jurisdictions across the country use the same voting equipment made by Dominion Voting Systems, a company that has since been sold and renamed Liberty Vote. But many have applied a software update to fix the flaw, and some other states do not allow the public release of records that are needed to exploit it, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group focused on election technology. Georgia, a presidential battleground with one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. Senate races this year, is the only place where the system is used statewide. Lindeman said that, combined with an open records law that has allowed access to key documents, creates a “perfect storm. It’s really embarrassing that this is still a possibility,” Lindeman said. Read Article

Georgia: What the Fulton County election warehouse raid did (and did not) accomplish | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

So far, the raid has failed to deliver new revelations or the indictments some Trump supporters had hoped for. But it demonstrated how far the administration would go to settle the president’s 2020 grievances and breathe new life into doubts about elections ahead of high-stakes elections in November. Now, some Democrats and election officials are concerned that it could be an omen of what’s on the horizon for future seizures in 2026 or even 2028. Last month, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Washington, D.C., over records it sought from the government for any planned seizures of election records or voting machines. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers consider how to protect voting access for people with disabilities, non-English speakers | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Accessibility advocates are urging state leaders to prioritize access for voters with disabilities and those who require language assistance as lawmakers prepare to overhaul Georgia’s election equipment ahead of 2028. Thanks to a bill passed during the June special session, state leaders appear likely to select hand-marked paper ballots as the state’s primary voting method ahead of 2028. The shift away from the state’s current, machine-marked ballot system will likely come as a relief to some critics of the current voting equipment, who have repeatedly cited fears over machine tampering and called for ballots to be counted based on text that can be deciphered by humans. But Georgia residents likely won’t see voting machines vanish completely. Under federal accessibility laws, every polling place is required to have at least one voting machine on hand for voters with disabilities, even in jurisdictions where most voters mark ballots by hand. Read Article

Georgia passed on election upgrades. A Princeton researcher exploited weaknesses in system. | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Using artificial intelligence to scan public databases, a Princeton University researcher has exploited a known weakness in Georgia’s voting system to identify, with fair certainty, how more than 2,200 people voted in Cherokee and Heard counties in the May primaries. Georgia election officials have known about the problem since 2022, but they have not updated the software for Georgia’s voting system since it was first purchased back in 2019. “Somehow, Georgia has not incorporated that sort of vulnerability patching into the maintenance of its election system,” said Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan who was one of the security researchers to first flag the issue in 2022. Read Article

Georgia Secretary of State launches bipartisan election integrity task force | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

The Georgia Secretary of State’s office is launching a bipartisan task force to shore up voter confidence in election results on both sides of the aisle. The organization, which is made up of former elected officials from both parties, county election workers and other election experts, officially launched Wednesday. Members include former Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, former GOP U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, former GOP U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson and former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who is a Democrat. In an interview, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is a Republican, said he hopes the appointees’ long records of public service will help voters trust the results of the midterm elections. Read Article

Georgia State Election Board tests limits ahead of midterms | Caleb Groves and Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The State Election Board drew national attention ahead of the 2024 presidential election for passing a slate of sweeping rules that read like a wish list of election skeptics. Once a lawyerly panel, a takeover by a trio of conservatives deeply mistrustful of the state’s voting system has turned the board’s once mundane meetings into boisterous events packed with crowds of cheering and jeering activists. Now, with high-stakes midterms on the horizon and President Donald Trump struggling to gain traction on many aspects of his election security agenda, all eyes are on the state board. The board is considering efforts that dovetail with Trump’s priorities, including reviewing voter rolls for suspected ineligible voters and approving voting system security upgrades, and it could revive efforts that would move toward hand-marked ballots for the midterms. Read Article

Georgia: GOP-heavy panel to shape next voting system | Greg Bluestein/The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Georgia’s next statewide voting system will be shaped by a nine-member committee with a decidedly Republican tilt. The panel is set to meet next Friday after lawmakers created it during a June special session. That same law pushed back a prohibition on using QR codes printed by Georgia’s current touchscreen system to tally votes until 2028. Now, the awkwardly named Election Equipment Specifications and Standards Committee must recommend a new system based on hand-marked paper ballots printed on demand. Its report is due by Jan. 31, 2027 — presumably to give whoever is elected secretary of state in November time to prepare for a rollout during the 2028 election cycle. The panel includes Republican state Rep. Tim Fleming, the GOP nominee for secretary of state. If he wins in November, Fleming could end up certifying a system he helped shape. Read Article

Georgia election board promotes new voter-roll tool ahead of midterms | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The creator of a controversial software used by conservative activists to challenge voter registrations they view as suspect is pitching a new program ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.Rick Richards, a retired doctor from Augusta and creator of the program ELLY, frames it as a neutral, data-driven tool for identifying discrepancies in voter rolls and ineligible registrants. Election officials say the program is prone to errors, but it is being promoted by people who have cast doubts about the 2020 election, including staffers of the Georgia State Election Board.In an unusual move last month, State Election Board Investigator Larry Duckworth sent the Chatham County Board of Registrars spreadsheets of about 220 voter registrations identified by ELLY that Duckworth deemed questionable. Read Article

Georgia’s Senators Ridicule Trump’s Election Fraud Claims | Carl Hulse/The New York Times

Georgia’s two Democratic senators didn’t wait for President Trump to try to undermine their legitimacy with false claims about their crucial election victories in 2020 that propelled Democrats to the Senate majority. In interviews and social media posts, Senators Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff have aggressively countered a potential presidential claim that they did not win their seats fairly. They acted after reports that the president would use a speech scheduled for Thursday evening to take aim at them, alleging widespread fraud in Georgia voting six years ago despite multiple inquiries that produced no evidence of wrongdoing. The two senators and their Democratic allies have ridiculed the president’s fixation on his loss in 2020 and the accompanying Democratic victories as driven by the president’s fragile ego, his efforts to sow distrust about the coming election results and to pressure congressional Republicans to pass new voting restrictions.Read Article

Georgia: Judge rejects DOJ attempt to get names of 2020 Fulton County election workers | Kate Brumback/Associated Press

The U.S. Department of Justice cannot have the names and personal contact information for every person who worked during the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. The Justice Department served a grand jury subpoena in April seeking the names and personal contact information of county employees and volunteer poll workers. President Donald Trump has long claimed without evidence that widespread voter fraud in Georgia’s most populous county, a Democratic stronghold, cost him victory in the state in 2020. Fulton County asked a judge to quash the subpoena, arguing it was meant to “target, harass and punish the President’s perceived political opponents” and that it was “grossly over broad and untethered to any reasonable need.” Read Article

Georgia: A last-minute change to ballot QR code bill could steer voting in a new direction | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

At least five different U.S.-based companies, including Liberty Vote, offer on-demand ballot printing, according to Verified Voting, a nonprofit organization that tracks election equipment across the country. The state does currently rely on paper ballots to tally the official results, though only absentee and provisional ballots are marked by hand. Georgia is also one of the few states that uses one type of election equipment statewide, meaning that a shift in the vendor who supplies the results would impact all of the state’s 159 counties. Mark Lindeman, Verified Voting’s policy and strategy director, said Fleming’s amendment largely aligns with the organization’s recommendation that most voters use ballots marked by hand and counted by machines, which they see as having the fewest risks and ensures that election officials can verify the outcome of an election. Precincts will still be required to have a certain number of ballot-marking devices to fulfill federal accessibility requirements though. “I think it’s a good path for Georgia to adopt for 2028,” Lindeman said, noting that the extended deadline was crucial to give state and local officials time to switch over to the new system. “There have been proposals to try to roll this out somehow this year, and I just didn’t see how any of those could work. There just wasn’t enough time to put it together.”  Read Article

Georgia will keep QR codes for counting votes through midterms | Sudhin Thanawala and Kate Brumback/Associated Press

Georgia will stick with an embattled vote-counting method that relies on a QR code for this year’s midterm elections after lawmakers passed legislation Tuesday that put off making changes until 2028. The votes in the state House and Senate came after lawmakers limited a provision that requires a hand recount of ballots in certain races. Leaders in the Republican-controlled Legislature said their plan to delay action on the vote-counting equipment had the support of the governor, Republican Brian Kemp. Kemp had called lawmakers into a special session in part to address a July 1 deadline that was set to ban the QR codes used for the official vote count. Legislators passed a law two years ago that set that deadline, but then failed to find a replacement for tabulating votes. Read Article

Georgia’s vote-counting method likely to remain in effect for midterms | Sudhin Thanawala and Kate Brumback/Associated Press

A day after postponing plans to redraw Georgia’s congressional and legislative districts, state lawmakers were poised Thursday to delay making any changes to the state’s current vote-counting method.That would mean the system, which relies on a QR code to tally the votes, will remain in place for the November election, an outcome some voting rights advocates preferred to avoid creating confusion at polling sites. On Thursday, they advanced legislation that would postpone a looming deadline to change the election system used throughout the political battleground state. That system relies on a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. Legislators passed a law two years ago barring the use of the QR code for the official vote count beyond July 1 of this year, but no replacement method of tabulating votes was ever implemented. Lawmakers were expected to try to come up with a new system during the special session but instead appear set to punt the issue until later. A bill advanced Thursday by state senators would extend the July 1 deadline to Jan. 1, 2028. It also would create a committee to recommend “specifications, standards, and requirements” for a new voting system. “We feel that this gets us into a position to clarify and provide certainty to our election officials and to our electorate,” Republican state Sen. Max Burns, who co-authored the legislation, told lawmakers. Read Article

Georgia GOP demands access to election headquarters | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Republican state senator demanded in Fulton County Superior Court on Wednesday that the secretary of state’s office allow observers into its election night reporting center, testifying that failing to do so undermines trust in the electoral process. State Sen. Greg Dolezal, who is running for lieutenant governor, and two other Republicans have sued to compel Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to admit credentialed poll watchers and State Election Board members into the center for all future elections. The secretary of state’s attorneys on Wednesday sought to dismiss the lawsuit. Although at least one current state board member had previously been invited to attend election night reporting, Raffensperger’s attorneys said that there is no legal right entitling board members and others to observe election night reporting. “No polling, no tabulation of votes, no voting occurs at the emergency operation center,” said Alexis Gregorian, an attorney representing Raffensperger. Vote casting and counting occur at the local level, while state officials receive and publish unofficial vote totals from across Georgia’s 159 counties at the emergency operations center on election night. Secretary of state officials also use the facility to monitor potential threats and other election issues. Read Articlea>

Georgia voting overhaul could bring big payday to companies | Caleb Groves and Tamar Hallerman/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A vendor set up outside the state Capitol during the General Assembly’s legislative session in March to tout his voting touchscreens and ballot tabulators. Election Systems & Software wasn’t there by chance. The Nebraska-based company was angling for a lucrative statewide contract it expected to go out for bid in early 2027, one that would determine how millions of Georgians cast ballots. On paper, the state isn’t due for new voting equipment until 2029. But after years of headlines about unpatched security flaws, unceasing conspiracy theories and polling showing a sizable chunk of Georgia voters with little confidence in the current system, lawmakers may choose to remedy the situation by taking bids for new machines in time for the 2028 elections. The contours of what that new system may look like could emerge during the June 17 special session. Lawmakers are tasked with redrawing the state’s political maps and finding a way to replace the QR codes currently used to count votes ahead of a self-imposed July 1 deadline. Vendors, however, are quietly positioning themselves for an even bigger prize: the prospect of a rare statewide contract worth upward of $100 million. Georgia voting overhaul could bring big payday to companies

Georgia Governor calls June special session over redistricting, ballot QR codes | Maya Homan and Alander Rocha/Georgia Recorder

Georgia lawmakers will reconvene in June for a special session to redraw the state’s political maps, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday. The move comes in the wake of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened key protections under the Voting Rights Act. Lawmakers will also be tasked with addressing an upcoming deadline to change the state’s current election system, which relies on a ballot QR code to count votes. Under a state law passed in 2024, QR codes cannot be used for the official ballot count after July 1. Kemp broke with many other Republican-led states in the South when he announced that the state would not pursue redistricting ahead of the 2026 general election. Other states, like Alabama and Tennessee, have rushed to break up Black-majority districts since the ruling. Read Article

Georgia: Trump Administration Demands Names of 2020 Election Workers | Nick Corasanti, Richard Fausset and Alan Feuer/The New York Times

The Justice Department has demanded the identities of every worker who staffed the 2020 election in Fulton County, Ga., according to court records, escalating an ongoing federal investigation of the 2020 vote in Georgia’s most populous county that relies on false and debunked claims. The demand targets employees of Fulton County elections as well as volunteer poll workers, who likely numbered in the thousands during the 2020 election, according to court records. The demand, which came via a federal grand jury subpoena, appears to be the latest effort by President Trump and his administration to use the investigative power of the federal government to pursue false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. With midterm voting underway in many states, including Georgia, the effort risks further undermining public confidence and sowing chaos among voters. Read Article

Georgia: Judge denies Fulton County’s request for return of 2020 ballots seized in FBI raid | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice does not have to return 2020 election ballots seized by FBI agents to Fulton County. It is the latest twist in the bitter fight between Fulton County and the Trump administration over the county’s 2020 election records. Fulton could appeal the ruling to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling is a substantial blow for Fulton officials as it may have been the county’s best shot at reclaiming the election documents. Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts said he agrees that the affidavit was troubling, but adamantly opposed Boulee’s ruling. He said the county would pursue all available legal options and called the culmination of the DOJ’s efforts to probe the 2020 election a coordinated effort aimed at harassing and intimidating the county. Read Article

Georgia voting machine deadline leaves counties with no way to run the 2026 election | Jessica Huseman/Votebeat

The state of Georgia’s elections right now is anything but peachy. In abouThe state of Georgia’s elections right now is anything but peachy. In about 10 weeks, county election officials are required to stop using their current voting system — but the state hasn’t told them what to replace it with. Right now, Georgia voters make their selections on touchscreen ballot-marking devices manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems (recently purchased and rebranded as Liberty Vote). Georgia rolled the machines out just before the 2020 election, as part of a sweeping and expensive statewide modernization effort — spurred in part by a 2019 federal court ruling that barred continued use of the paperless touchscreen systems the state had relied on since the early 2000s. The newer machines print a paper ballot listing the voter’s choices in plain English next to a QR code encoding the same choices. When ballots are tabulated, the scanners read the QR code — not the printed text beside it — to count the vote. That design has long drawn fire from both Republicans and Democrats, who argue voters can’t actually verify what a QR code says, only the text next to it. Read Article

Georgia’s voting technology blunder | Cory Doctorow/Medium

Nearly 25 years ago, in the aftermath of Bush v Gore, I got involved in a bunch of ugly tech policy fights over voting machines. The hanging chad debacle in Florida prompted Congress to appropriate funds for states to purchase new touchscreen voting machines based on a robust, open standard. The problem was, those machines didn’t exist. The voting machine industry in those days was already very consolidated (it’s far more consolidated today). They went shopping for a standards body that would publish a spec for a “standard” voting machine that could soak up those federal dollars in time for the 2004 election. The only taker was the IEEE, who unwisely offered to serve as host for this impossible rush job. Once the voting machine reps were around a table at IEEE — largely sheltered from antitrust scrutiny thanks to the broad latitude enjoyed by firms engaged in standardization, which is otherwise uncomfortably close to collusion — they admitted what everyone already knew: there was zero chance they were going to develop a new standard in time for the election. Read Article

Georgia elections board weighs paper ballots options for November voting | Caleb Groves/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Faced with a vote-counting system that may soon violate state law, the State Election Board is weighing Georgia’s backup system: paper ballots filled out by hand. The Republican-controlled board spent hours Wednesday debating its rulemaking authority and a proposal to abandon Georgia’s current touchscreen voting system that uses QR codes, unreadable by humans, to count votes. The proposal would switch the state to a system where voters would fill in bubbles on a paper ballot that would then be read by a scanner. Critics — including many local election officials — fear a midyear switch would cause disruption at the polls in November. Others said the rule change would overstep the board’s legal authority. Proponents say those concerns are overblown, noting that poll workers are supposed to be trained to use the backup system and a majority of the country already uses paper ballots. The move comes as the state hurtles toward a July deadline to eliminate using QR codes to tally votes, leaving election officials and elections in limbo with no clear plan for compliance. Read Article

Georgia lawmakers end annual session without settling conflict on voting machines | Charlotte Kramon and Jeff Amy/Associated Press

The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state’s voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground. The lawmakers’ failure to offer a solution after months of debate raises uncertainty about how Georgians will vote in November and leaves confusion that could end in the courts or a special legislative session. “They’ve abdicated their responsibility,” Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said of inaction by Republicans who control the legislature. Currently, voters make their choices on Dominion Voting machines, which then print ballots with a QR code that scanners read to tally votes. Those machines have been repeatedly targeted by President Donald Trump following his 2020 election loss, and Trump’s Georgia supporters responded by enacting a law in 2024 that bans using barcodes to count votes. Read Article

Georgia: Elections bill capsizes on final day of 2026 session | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

In an unexpected twist, members of the House and Senate concluded the 2026 legislative session without ending their longstanding stalemate over election policy, as Georgia hurtles toward the deadline for removing QR codes from voters’ ballots without a clear solution in sight. The lack of a solution has some lawmakers calling on Gov. Brian Kemp to convene a special session to give them another shot at passing an elections bill this year. On the final legislative day, House lawmakers passed Senate Bill 214, a measure that would postpone lawmakers’ self-imposed deadline for removing QR codes from ballots until 2028 and direct the state to begin the process of procuring a new election system this upcoming February. But the bill never made it across the finish line in the Senate, which adjourned shortly after 1 a.m. without taking up the measure. Since the 2026 session was also the end of the biennium, all bills must be refiled next year and start the legislative process over. Read Article

Georgia: Fulton County alleges DOJ used  FBI raid to circumvent lawsuit, seize 2020 ballots | Jacob Knutson/Democracy Docket

Fulton County officials fighting for the return of 2020 election materials seized by the FBI asked a federal judge Tuesday to order the Department of Justice (DOJ) to disclose details about its repeated attempts to obtain the county’s election records. In a new filing, the officials alleged that unusual events before the FBI’s raid strongly suggested that the DOJ, having previously sought the records through demand letters and a lawsuit, pursued a criminal investigation against the county to seize and access the documents by force. The county officials noted that the FBI’s January search was initiated around 48 days after the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sought the same records in a lawsuit filed in mid December and just days after the division ran into legal obstacles in that suit. Fulton County alleges DOJ used  FBI raid to circumvent lawsuit, seize 2020 ballots - Democracy Docket

Georgia Court of Appeals sides with Fulton County in fight over election board appointments | Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder

Georgia’s Court of Appeals has overturned a trial court’s ruling ordering the Fulton County Board of Commissioners to seat two conservative election activists on the county election board or face daily fines. In May, Democrats on the board had rejected two Republican Party nominees, Julie Adams and Jason Frazier, citing concerns about both individuals’ past actions and arguing that they were not qualified for the position. But the Fulton County GOP filed a lawsuit arguing that the commissioners were required to approve the party’s nominees as long as they met basic required standards like living in the county, being a registered voter and not being an elected official. Read Article

Georgia was going to dump voting machines that Trump hates until things got complicated | Jeff Amy/Associated Press

It seemed like the stars had aligned for Republicans to get rid of their biggest targets — Georgia’s touch screen voting machines. But the complicated reality of changing voting systems has gotten in the way, despite the ascent of 2020 election deniers into influential places in state government and the second Donald Trump administration. Instead, it is looking increasingly likely that Georgia voters will still be casting ballots this November on the machines from Dominion Voting Systems, which was bought by a company called Liberty Vote. The machines print a paper ballot with a QR code, a type of barcode, that scanners use to tally votes. Republicans face hurdles in replacing Georgia's touch screen voting machines | AP News