The election deadline looming in Georgia
The election denial movement is alive and well — and Georgians still don't know how they'll vote in November.
For now, read my full report on the fight over Georgia ballots and vote-counting today at The New Republic. And if you want to support my work, please consider a paid subscription to American Doom. You can also drop a few dollars at our Coffee Fund, here.
Good morning from Savannah, where spring is about to pop if the hint of salt smell coming off the marsh this morning is any indication.
Meanwhile in Atlanta, lawmakers are no closer after two months in session to agreeing on a replacement ballot and tabulation system as a July 1 deadline approaches. That deadline requires that the ballots Georgians will vote on in November cannot have QR codes that are scanned in order to tabulate votes. Why? Because the election denial movement believes — with no proof — that QR codes can be used to manipulate, even change, votes.
The QR code ban shouldn’t have happened in the first place — there is no evidence that a single vote has ever been flipped simply because election equipment in Georgia utilize QR codes to tabulate votes. But the cat’s already out of the bag thanks to the passage of a 2024 bill, SB 189, that sets the July 1 deadline and accompanying prohibition on QR codes.
So, it’s up to the Georgia legislature to come up with a replacement system for how the state will count votes in the November midterms. So far this legislative session, which ends in early April, lawmakers have failed to introduce bills that solely address how those votes will be counted. Instead, the Republican-dominated legislature has introduced far more sweeping legislation that would require various forms of hand counts and hand-marked paper ballots for millions of Georgians to vote.
If Republicans get their way and Georgians will have to vote on hand-marked paper ballots, instead of the touchscreens the state has used for years, and those votes will then have to be counted by hand, we can expect chaos and turmoil.
