Georgia’s State Election Board unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday urging state lawmakers to hasten a switch to hand-marked paper ballots, just a day after legislators unveiled a proposal to delay overhauling Georgia’s election system until after the 2026 midterms. The resolution, introduced by board member Salleigh Grubbs, requests that Georgia implement hand-marked paper ballots “as […]
Members of Georgia’s State Election Board meet on March 18 at the Marietta City Hall building. Maya Homan/Georgia Recorder
Georgia’s State Election Board unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday urging state lawmakers to hasten a switch to hand-marked paper ballots, just a day after legislators unveiled a proposal to delay overhauling Georgia’s election system until after the 2026 midterms.
The resolution, introduced by board member Salleigh Grubbs, requests that Georgia implement hand-marked paper ballots “as soon as practicable,” arguing that the state’s current system of using QR codes to tally ballots does not allow voters to fully proof their ballots before casting them.
“I think this is an emergency in Georgia,” Grubbs said at a board meeting Wednesday. “I think a voting emergency should be declared.”
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Precisely what “practicable” means, though, is a matter of debate. House lawmakers unveiled a plan Tuesday to make the switch in time for the 2028 presidential election. Rep. Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who is sponsoring the bill in the House, said lawmakers had hoped to remove the QR codes by the original deadline of July, but “very quickly and very abruptly began to realize that the practicality of that happening without causing a severe upset in our election system, it just wasn’t gonna happen. It wasn’t possible.”
Multiple members of the Republican-controlled board expressed frustration with state lawmakers for planning to extend the deadline for the state to remove QR codes from voters’ ballots.
“At this point it almost feels like we have no choice but to send something to the Legislature,” board member Janelle King said.
The board can make recommendations to lawmakers but cannot bypass the will of the Legislature. In June, the state Supreme Court permanently blocked four rules passed by the board, stating that the panel could not implement rules that went beyond the scope of Georgia’s election laws.
An earlier version of Grubbs’ resolution also included requests for state lawmakers to immediately appropriate funds for new ballot printers and appoint a slate of legal advisors within the next week to help the board issue guidance to counties for how to remove QR codes from ballots ahead of the general election in November. However, that proposal received pushback from both Democratic appointee Sara Tindall Ghazal and Vice Chair Janice Johnston, a GOP appointee, and was ultimately abandoned.
“Parts of this are in conflict with what the Legislature is currently doing,” Ghazal said of the original resolution, adding that she didn’t feel comfortable supporting a measure that would directly contradict state lawmakers’ proposals.
Though Johnston has been a vocal advocate for implementing hand-marked paper ballots, she also declined to support the original resolution, saying “I can’t agree that it’s the role of this board to tell the General Assembly what to do.”
Former Gwinnett County Elections Director Zach Manifold also expressed hesitation about whether a county like his would be able to run elections without using QR codes by November.
The board is also set to consider a new rule that would make it easier for activists to challenge registered voters and get them kicked off the state’s voter rolls.
The rule was presented at the board’s meeting Wednesday by Forsyth County resident Stefan Bartelski, who described himself as an election integrity activist. He urged the board to implement a rule preventing counties from imposing a fee on those who submit voter challenges.
In 2024, some counties in the state began charging activists for the cost of mailing notification letters to residents who were named in the challenges, arguing that it cost thousands of dollars to notify everyone named.
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“During public comment, someone mentioned thousands of challenges being so costly,” Bartelski said during his presentation. “If the rolls were accurate enough, there would be no necessity to make those challenges.”
In addition to routine voter roll maintenance conducted by county officials, last year Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger removed roughly 478,000 voters from the state’s voter lists whose registrations had been slated for cancellation. Another 218,000 active voters were notified that they risked becoming inactive unless they reached out to their local elections office.
Before that, a 2024 Associated Press investigation found that fewer than 1% of Georgians whose registrations were challenged by activists ultimately got removed from the voter rolls.
The board acknowledged that it may need to seek advice from state legislators or the attorney general before enforcing such a rule, but voted 3-0 to advance the proposal. The public will now have 30 days to submit input on the rule before the board can take the next step in the rulemaking process.
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