Election Law Could Slow Vote Counting in Key Midterm Battleground

Georgia, one of the most closely watched election battlegrounds in the nation, could face a significant technology overhaul resulting in slower ballot counting or delayed results in the upcoming midterm elections.

After July 1, Georgia election officials can no longer use QR codes to tabulate ballots after a 2024 law goes into effect, sparking concern among election officials.

“The sky is not falling yet, but it is definitely cloudy,” Joseph Kirk, the Bartow County elections director and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, told the Daily Signal.

For past years, and for the upcoming May primary and June runoff elections, Georgia’s voting machines have used QR codes to tally votes. QR is short for quick response. After the July 1 deadline, the technology would be phased out for tabulation purposes.

Kirk said the July 1 deadline and November election present a very tight timeline to make sweeping changes to the ballot-counting process necessary to comply with the law.

However, some Georgia officials close to the matter suggest it’s far from a crisis and point out that the language of the law does not ban the use of QR codes altogether, only their use for final tabulation.

The 2024 Georgia statute says, “The official tabulation count of any ballot scanner shall be based upon the text portion or the machine mark, provided that such mark clearly denotes the elector’s selection and does not use a QR code, bar code, or similar coding, of such ballots and not any machine coding that may be printed on such ballots.”

That delineation is not clear enough for election chiefs, Kirk said.

“I suppose some might argue we could use the codes for an initial tally on election night as long as it’s not for the official tabulation. But then it could depend on the definition of tabulation. People at my level cannot make those decisions and need legal guidance,” Kirk said.

Critics of using QR codes asserted that voters can’t read the codes to verify that their ballots accurately reflect their choices. However, others contend that technology, properly deployed, can’t be tampered with in the same way that human counting could.

The election clerks group pressed the state legislature to approve an extension to the July 1 deadline or approve new funding for counties to make the change. However, lawmakers adjourned earlier this month without taking any action on the QR codes.

Kirk said that leaves three potential paths forward. First, Gov. Brian Kemp could call a special legislative session to address the problem. Another option could be that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger takes executive action as the state’s top election official. A third option is a lawsuit prompting a judge to impose a solution on the state.

Neither Raffensperger’s office nor Kemp’s office has been specific about the next step.

“As always, Secretary Raffensperger remains committed to following the law and following the Constitution in conducting free, fair, and fast elections for all Georgia voters,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, told The Daily Signal.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s spokesman, Carter Chapman, referred the Daily Signal to a previous statement issued after the end of the legislative session.

“The governor’s office will begin a thorough bill and budget review process on Monday and will analyze all the bills that passed the General Assembly, as well as the consequences of those that did not pass,” Chapman said.

It’s a false choice between QR codes and slow hand counting of ballots, said Janice Johnston, vice chairwoman of the Georgia State Election Board. She said Georgia has used hand-marked paper ballots in the past that could be scanned in a timely manner and could still be audited without adding time to tabulation.

She doubts the Georgia State Election Board will get involved.

“Right now it’s a legislative matter. If the board tried to preemptively work out a solution, it would be outside its authority,” Johnston told The Daily Signal. “Once July 1 passes and nothing changes, the Elections Board might have to direct the counties to take an emergency procedure. But my prediction is that there will be a special session, and no matter what happens in the special session, it will end up in court, because the sides are so dug in. And courts hate to deal with election issues.”

Last November, Charlene McGowan, the general counsel for the secretary of state’s office, wrote a letter to lawmakers saying optical character recognition technology could be a cost-effective way to implement the 2024 law.

OCR, short for optical character recognition, converts images of text—such as scanned documents, PDFs, or photos—into machine-readable data. This differs from QR codes, which are structured, high-speed two-dimensional barcodes designed for instant digital lookup. OCR converts physical text into digital text, while QR codes are designed to store small amounts of data instantly.