Last week the Georgia State Elections Board met in a packed-out Dawsonville court house to address several issues and complaints regarding the elections systems. One of the subjects they took up was S.B. 189, the legislation passed by the Georgia legislature back in 2024 that said, among other things, that the QR codes on the ballots would have to be discontinued by this year on July 1st.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is claiming the statute was an “unfunded mandate,” impossible for his office to implement across the state without more funding that would necessitate a special legislative session. A representative for his office was schedule to testify before the state Board of Elections, but bowed out the night before.
Board members such as Dr. Jan Johnston and Salleigh Grubbs, on the other hand, both agreed that the law should be implemented by the deadline, but Salleigh insisted that they need not call a special session because a lot of the legislators are out currently campaigning for election.
Dr. Johnston said that every county has a ballot-on-demand printer that was provided from Dominion when they setup their machines. Those printers can print provisional and emergency ballots that do not have the QR codes, and they could be used to enable the counties to meet the legal deadline looming. The counties already have 10% of these emergency paper ballots on hand for every election. “We should not stand idle,” said Johnston. She said that if the county election directors have not “already started planning for the use of paper ballots, then they are behind the eight ball!”
Jim Coles is a local county Board of Elections member in Catoosa County. He spoke to the elections officials in his county, and received confirmation that his county was indeed provided with a “back-up” machine, in case the Dominion computer system broke down, to print regular ballots without a QR code for traditional counting. “Every county was issued at least one Dominion ballot-on-demand printer as a back up,” said Jim. That being the case, it would seem then that every county should already have the ability to meet the statutory deadline. They just need to convert Plan B into Plan A.