Citing flaws in the current technology, a federal judge has ordered Georgia officials to stop using its outdated electronic voting machines by the end of 2019.
The state of Georgia will not make the switch for the municipal elections being held in November 2019, as the judge agreed with the state that it would be too disruptive to change to paper ballots that quickly.
The old touchscreen voting machines were already going to be phased out in favor of a new system based on ballot-marking machines, and the state hopes to have the new machines in place for the presidential primary in March 2020. The concern is that things might not be running right on schedule and the back-up plan would be the old, insecure technology.
If the state isn’t ready to make the switch to the new technology, it will need to rely on paper ballots.
“The court’s ruling recognizes that Georgia’s voting machines are so insecure, they’re unconstitutional,” stated computer scientist Alex Halderman, the plantiffs’ star witness. “That’s a huge win for election security that will reverberate across other states that have equally vulnerable systems.”
Additional Resources
Judge orders Georgia to switch to paper ballots for 2020 election, Ars Technica, August 16, 2019
Image credit: Shutterstock.com / I’m friday
