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Monitor: Election 2020
A Warning to Georgia Voters To Ensure Their Votes Count
Despite major concerns, Georgians are set to vote on a new controversial electronic election system
All eyes are on Georgia this year, a purple state that could send two Democratic U.S. Senate candidates to Washington—possibly flipping the Senate. But with only a few weeks left before the presidential preference primary on March 24, Georgia voters remain gravely concerned about the reliability of the state’s brand new $104 million Dominion election system, which involves a dizzying combination of touchscreen ballot-marking devices (BMD), printers attached to every BMD, battery backups, electronic check-in poll pads, and one or two optical scanners at every precinct.
This new equipment brings with it a significantly higher electrical load and takes up far more space, which could overwhelm older and smaller polling places. (The battery backup should ensure uninterrupted power in the event of a power outage.) And because the Georgia State Election Board is still in the process of determining rules for operation, it’s highly unlikely that all poll workers will be completely trained on the new equipment by early voting, which begins Monday.
Given the stakes of this year’s election and the Secretary of State’s dogged attempt to make voting as difficult as possible, Georgia voters must take every precaution to ensure their votes count in 2020.
Last year, a federal judge issued a decision that prevented the state from utilizing its outdated ES&S paperless direct recording electronic machines in 2020. Despite cybersecurity experts’ dire warnings that any electronic device that comes between a voter and their ballot is vulnerable to hacking, the SOS decided to purchase another electronic election system. The new, far more cumbersome Dominion BMD continues to utilize a touchscreen, but also prints out a paper receipt. The voter must then verify their selections on the printed receipt and feed it into an optical scanner to have their vote tabulated.
With new evidence suggesting that Georgia elections were hacked even before the 2016 presidential election…
