Judge calls Georgia’s voting system ‘archaic’

Suit seeks immediate shift to paper ballots

ATLANTA — Georgia allowed its election system to grow “way too old and archaic” and now has a deep hole to dig out of to ensure the constitutional right to vote is protected, according to U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg.

Totenberg is in the difficult position of having to decide whether the state, which plans to implement a new voting system statewide next year, must immediately abandon its outdated voting machines in favor of an interim solution for special and municipal elections to be held this fall.

Election integrity advocates and individual voters sued Georgia election officials in 2017 alleging that the touchscreen voting machines the state has used since 2002 are unsecure and vulnerable to hacking. They’ve asked Totenberg to order the state to immediately switch to handmarked paper ballots.

But lawyers for state election officials and for Fulton County, the state’s most populous county, which includes most of Atlanta, argued that the state is in the process of implementing a new system, and it would be too costly, burdensome and chaotic to use an interim system for elections this fall and then switch to the new permanent system next year.

A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system in which voters make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. State officials have said it will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued Friday that the current system is so unsecure and vulnerable to manipulation that it cannot be relied upon, jeopardizing voters’ constitutional rights.

Addressing concerns about an interim system being burdensome to implement, plaintiffs’ lawyers countered that the state put itself in this situation by neglecting the system for so long and ignoring warnings.

Lawyer David Cross, who represents another group of voters, urged the judge to force the state to take responsibility.

The plaintiffs had asked Totenberg in August to order Georgia to use hand-marked paper ballots for that election.

While Totenberg expressed grave concerns about vulnerabilities in the voting system and scolded state officials for being slow to respond to evidence of those problems, she said a switch to paper ballots so close to the midterm election would be too chaotic.