From left to right, Democratic state Reps. Debra Bazemore, Phil Olaleye and Gabriel Sanchez, and in the front, Democratic state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, participate in a House Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on SB 3EX on an elections bill on Monday, June 22, 2026. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
Georgia state lawmakers are considering a bill with a provision that would require hand recounts of all ballots cast for the top two races of any Georgia election before certification, but some say the proposal would lead to inaccurate and delayed elections.
State legislators are currently convening for a special session to, in part, address a state law that makes using QR codes on ballots illegal starting in July. This is because lawmakers were unable to pass an alternate system of counting votes during the regular session this year.
Senate Bill 3EX originated as a proposal to temporarily resolve that issue by punting the deadline for using QR codes to Jan. 1, 2028. It also proposes creating an advisory committee that would present recommendations for a new elections system to lawmakers for the 2027 legislative session.
On Saturday, however, Senate Republicans introduced an amendment to add hand recounts of the top two races to SB 3EX, which passed out of the Senate.
At a House Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Monday, bill author state Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, defended the amendment.
“I think the reason to have this section included is to add confidence by Georgians that the elections that they just participated in were accurately tabulated,” Burns said.
Georgia state Senator Max Burns, R-Sylvania, presents SB 3EX to the Georgia House Committee on Governmental Affairs on Monday, June 22, 2026. The bill extends the deadline to remove QR codes from Georgia ballots but also includes an amendment that adds hand recounts before certifcation of election results. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
Atlanta Democrat state Rep. Phil Olaleye questioned the accuracy of hand counting ballots. A 2018 study from MIT found that optical scanners were more accurate than hand counting ballots.
“Do you believe that thousands of different individuals across the state, counting upwards of 8 million ballots, would result in a more accurate vote tally than a machine?” he said.
Shea Roberts, D-Sandy Springs, said hand recounting would significantly raise the cost of election administration. For Fulton County, she said she’s received estimates that it would cost $500,000 per race for a total of $1 million for both races that are recounted.
“It’s $100,000 per day. They’ll have two different shifts running ’round the clock. You’re gonna have to have 125 on the Democratic side and 125 on the Republican side, not including security officers, custodians, material handlers, data entry, all of those folks, right? That’s for shift one. Then you got to do a shift two because we already said the attention span is short, so you can’t have them working 24 hours around the clock,” Roberts said.
State Rep. Shea Roberts, D-Atlanta, speaks during a House Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on SB 3EX on Monday June 22, 2026. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
Burns said only a select few counties with large populations would have a significantly greater amount of work under the bill. The legislature had already allocated $15 million in the 2026 amended budget.
Around 20 people signed up to testify during public comment, with a few speaking in favor of hand recounts, but a majority speaking against.
Todd Edwards, director of governmental affairs at the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, which serves as a legislative organization for Georgia’s county governments, asked that the hand recount proposal be removed from the bill due to cost and timeline issues.
“Over the years, ACCG has only come before you to comment on election bills when it impacted the cost to counties, local taxpayers’ cost and administration of elections, and we feel that this amendment definitely impacts both of them,” Edwards said.
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Brittany Burns, an organizer in Atlanta with the Black Voters Matter Fund, said the hand counting measure falls outside the constitutional scope of the governor’s proclamation, which sets the agenda for the special session. Burns said it would also lead to delays in certification.
“Hand counts should not nullify machine results. Hand counts do not make elections more accurate or more transparent. Hand counting is actually significantly more error prone and more costly than machine counting. It’s also slower, delaying the delivery of election results and risking certification problems. Senator Burns said that it would provide confidence. I am putting it on record as a Georgia voter that this does not make me feel confident,” she said.
State Rep. Noelle Kahaian, R-Locust Grove, spoke favorably toward the hand counting measure, citing an election system glitch in DeKalb County that led poll workers to recount all ballots in the District 2 Commissioner race by hand.
“That’s actually a recent case that we had an issue with, so that recount helped a lot to give confidence to our voters that they know that the actual results for their choices are actually being counted,” Kahaian said.
State Sen. Max Burns, R-Sylvania, presents SB 3EX to the House Governmental Affairs Committee on Monday, June 22, 2026. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
Under SB 3EX, if the hand recount finds a different number of votes from the original count, then the vote totals would be “corrected accordingly” before certification. Burns said the bill does not prioritize the hand count totals over machine count totals, but did not specify how a correction would occur.
Burns also said the bill does not address whether hand recounts have to happen before local or state certification, but added that state certification depends on local certification.
Several people at the committee hearing took issue with what they say is the bill’s vague language.
“‘Shall be corrected accordingly.’ It doesn’t say according to what. Any good lawyer would tell you that you don’t draft legislation or a contract that doesn’t clearly define what according to what. Also, you’ve said that it’s silent as to whether it’s going to be pre-certification by the counties or pre-certification by the secretary of state,” Roberts said. “Any good lawyer would advise you that you don’t leave key terms out of legislation or a contract.”
The House Governmental Affairs Committee did not vote on the bill on Monday and will meet again Tuesday morning. Burns said he still believes the two chambers can find a compromise.
“I think the arguments that were made today were valid arguments that we’ve heard in the past, and we accept and appreciate, and I point out we don’t disagree with many of those,” he said after the hearing Monday. “I would suggest to you that we’re working to strike a balance. We’re working to find the right place for us to land.”
