Judge: State must allow inspection of databases

ATLANTA » A federal judge has ordered Georgia election officials to allow computer experts and lawyers to review the databases used to create ballots and count votes.

The ruling came Tuesday in a lawsuit that challenges Georgia’s election system and seeks statewide use of hand-marked paper ballots.

U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg gave the state until today to turn over electronic copies of the databases to the plaintiffs’ lawyers and computer experts. The lawsuit was filed by a group of voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, an election integrity advocacy organization. It argues that the paperless touchscreen voting machines Georgia has used since 2002 are unsecure, vulnerable to hacking and unable to be audited.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have argued that they need to inspect the databases at issue because they provide the information that is loaded onto voting machines and then record the cast vote records.

“As such, they provide a roadmap for any coding or configuration errors, security breaches, machine malfunctions, tabulation irregularities or other issues,” according to a court filing laying out the Coalition’s arguments.

They also argued that the information is a public record that should be released. Lawyers for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger countered that disclosure of sensitive information in the databases could jeopardize the security of the election system.

Totenberg wrote in her order that the state had not explained how providing an electronic copy of the databases to the plaintiffs’ lawyers and experts under strict security conditions would create a risk of “third-party criminal hacking.”

“The State of Georgia has always treated this critical election infrastructure information as highly confidential,” secretary of state’s office spokeswoman Tess Hammock said in an email. “We are disappointed that Judge Totenberg has ordered us to give sensitive election infrastructure to those who seek to disrupt Georgia’s elections.”

She declined to say whether the state plans to appeal Totenberg’s ruling.

“We’re pleased that the Court saw through the State’s obstruction and provided much needed transparency into an election system that’s highly vulnerable and may already be compromised,” David Cross, a lawyer for some of the voters in the lawsuit, said in an email.