Georgia’s Secretary of State, now running for governor, is pushing to replace the state’s voting machines after years of declaring the current system safe. Brian Kemp established the Secure, Accessible and Fair Elections Commission in April to study a replacement for Georgia’s current electronic touchscreen system, which does not create an auditable paper record, after efforts to get replacements installed in time for this year’s elections failed. The group will meet for the first time June 13, and will review options including touchscreens that print paper ballots, and ballots marked by hand with a pen.
Kemp, who is locked in a heated runoff against Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle for the GOP nomination for governor, has been accused by election integrity activists of mismanaging state elections as Georgia’s top elections official through poor oversight and in resisting the transparency they say is necessary to instill faith in the process.
In 2015, Kemp’s office inadvertently released the social security numbers and other identifying information of millions of Georgia voters. Kemp’s office blamed a clerical error.
His office made headlines again last year after security experts disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn’t fixed until six months after it was first reported to election authorities. Personal data was again exposed for Georgia’s 6.7 million voters, as were passwords used by county officials to access files.
Full Article: Georgia Secretary of State moves to review voting machines.