Georgia GOP Wants State to Get Rid of Voting Machines

Republicans in Georgia are asking the state to do away with voting machines in the interest of election security, according to a Wednesday report.

“Georgia’s Republican party is recommending that the state get rid of its new voting machines and replace them with hand-marked paper ballots,” WXIA reported.

The state spent $100 million to buy new voting machines for every precinct less than two years ago, in 2019.

But after serious security questions from the 2020 election cycle, some of which have still not been answered, a Republican party study committee is recommending a return to the old fashioned way of voting.

They want the state to “return touchscreens, dedicated scanners and batteries” to Dominion voting systems, which uses QR codes to count votes.

Brad Carver, the Georgia GOP’s 11th district chairman reportedly led the committee.

“There is concern from Georgians on both sides of the aisle about QR codes and voters not being able to scan a ballot and know that when that ballot is scanned, that it’s actually the choices they made,” he said. “We want voters to have confidence in our system.”

The committee called for other reforms, too, like the elimination of ballot drop boxes, and an end to “no excuse” absentee voting.

Drop boxes were also a flashpoint after last year’s elections in Georgia. The legally required chain of custody documents for about 600,000 drop box ballots have never been produced, and tens of thousands of drop box ballots were not “immediately” delivered to election officials upon pickup, as Georgia’s election code requires.

Democrat state Sen. Elena Parent (D-Atlanta) agrees with Republicans on the issue voting machine issue, though she thinks they reached their conclusion the wrong way.

“It is very ironic that Republicans have belatedly realized that there is a more secure and less expensive method that we should have adopted two years ago in Georgia,” she reportedly said. “Hand marked paper ballots would have been a more economical and more secure system for Georgians.”

She said that Republicans are “belatedly” arriving at that conclusion, and that their reasoning – potential election fraud – is a “false narrative.”

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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].