Judge rules Georgia must scrap old voting machines
ATLANTA — A federal judge overseeing a challenge to Georgia’s outdated voting system said that after years of inaction in the face of warnings about vulnerabilities, state officials have finally taken a solid step in the right direction. But she foreshadowed a looming fight over the state’s new system, writing that “it may be ‘like ‘deja vu all over again.’ ”
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg’s order on Thursday prohibits the state from using its antiquated paperless touchscreen machines and election management system beyond this year. She also said the state must be ready to use hand-marked paper ballots if its new system isn’t in place for the March 24 presidential primary election.
“Georgia’s current voting equipment, software, election and voter databases, are antiquated, seriously flawed, and vulnerable to failure, breach, contamination, and attack,” she wrote.
Totenberg also said the plaintiffs would likely win at trial, citing “the mountain of voter testimony showing that these vulnerabilities have a tangible impact on these voters’ attempts to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot and have their vote counted.”
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 had asked Totenberg to order an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots.
Totenberg had declined a similar request last year ahead of last November’s gubernatorial election, and she again held back from ordering an immediate switch on Thursday, citing concerns about the state’s capacity to make an interim switch to hand-marked paper ballots for special and municipal elections this fall while also working to implement a new system.
This ruling applies only to Georgia, but at least parts of eight other states still use paperless balloting. Using voter registration and turnout data, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law estimated in a report this week that as many as 12 percent of voters, or around 16 million people, will vote on paperless equipment in November 2020.
Georgia’s new system, following specifications approved by the Republicanled state legislature, was certified last week by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who said it will be in place for the primaries. The state’s $106 million contract with Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems includes new touchscreen voting machines that print a paper record with a code that’s read by a scanner.
The plaintiffs in this lawsuit have said the new machines have many of the same vulnerabilities as the old ones. They also object to the fact that the portion of the printed record that’s read by the scanner is a QR code, not human-verifiable text, meaning voters have to trust that the code accurately reflects their selections.
Totenberg praised the legislation providing for a new system as “an essential step forward out of the quagmire, even if just to terminate use of an antiquated vulnerable voting system.”
Both sides in the case saw victory in Totenberg’s order.
“(W)e are pleased the Court endorsed the policy decisions of the state’s elected officials to move to a new paper ballot voting system in time for the 2020 elections while not disrupting the 2019 elections,” Raffensperger said in an emailed statement. “These activist plaintiffs continue fruitlessly attempting to force their preferred policy outcomes on Georgia voters without success.”
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, one of the plaintiffs in the case, wrote in an email that it was important that Totenberg “recognized Plaintiffs concerns about the State’s plan to move to another form of electronic voting — electronic ballot marking devices.” The voters’ right to accountable elections requires hand-marked paper ballots counted by optical scanners with thorough audits, she wrote.
David Cross, a lawyer representing several Georgia voters in the case, called the ruling a “big win for all Georgia voters and those working across the country to secure elections and protect the right to vote.”