With the start of early voting less than a week away and a software update being installed to address a glitch in Georgia’s voting machines, a federal judge was still considering a request by voting integrity activists to sideline the new touchscreen voting machines in favor of hand-marked paper ballots for the November general election.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg is presiding over a long-running lawsuit filed by election integrity advocates that challenges the election system the state bought last year from Dominion Voting Systems for more than $100 million. The activists argue that the system places an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote because voters cannot be confident their votes are accurately counted. A recently identified bug in the touchscreen machines and a hasty software update underscore that they aren’t ready for use, they say.
State officials have countered that Georgia has made significant improvements in recent years to update and secure election infrastructure. They have urged Totenberg not to order any changes so close to the election, saying they would be extremely costly and difficult to implement in time. The new problem was identified through testing meant to catch such issues and was quickly addressed, they say.
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