Georgia Secretary Of State Moves To Review Voting Machines

Georgia’s Secretary of State, now running for governor, is pushing to replace the state’s voting machines, a move his office said for years was unnecessary.

Brian Kemp established the Secure, Accessible and Fair Elections Commission in April to study a replacement for Georgia’s current electronic touchscreen system, which creates no paper records, after efforts to get replacements installed in time for this year’s elections failed.

The group will meet for the first time June 13, and will review options including touchscreens that print paper ballots, and ballots marked by hand with a pen.

Kemp, who is locked in a heated runoff against Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle for the GOP nomination for governor, has been blamed in court and on the campaign trail for repeated breaches of voter data under his tenure as Georgia’s top elections official.

In 2015, Kemp’s office inadvertently released the social security numbers and other identifying information of millions of Georgia voters. Kemp’s office blamed a clerical error for that one.

His office made headlines again last year after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn’t fixed for six months after he first reported it to election authorities. Personal data was again exposed for Georgia’s 6.7 million voters, as were passwords used by county officials to access files.

Voting integrity advocates say Georgia’s current system lacks a verifiable paper trail that can be audited in the event of problems. Critics said a Senate measure to replace the machines didn’t go far enough to ensure transparency.

At this point, any change would not affect this year’s elections, and any new system would likely be overseen by the next Secretary of State.