Georgia lawmakers are deciding whether to spend as much as $66 million to remove computer QR codes from ballots or abandon the idea in favor of a $15 million software update.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asked a Senate budget committee Wednesday to consider the less expensive option for the state’s 6-year-old voting equipment, manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems.
“This change would help ensure continued voter confidence without drastically changing the voting system,” Raffensperger said. “There had been some reports that said if we could update the software, that any potential vulnerabilities could then be sealed.”
Raffensperger’s suggestion would require the General Assembly to reverse a law passed last year to eliminate QR codes, which contain voters’ choices but aren’t readable by the human eye. The law calls for ballot scanners to instead read either filled-in ovals or the printed text of voters’ choices by July 1, 2026.
His proposal revives a debate over Georgia’s voting technology, which has faced criticism about security weaknesses from election security advocates and Republican activists. Election officials say the system has never been hacked or tampered with during an election.
Raffensperger’s office estimated that removing QR codes would cost more than the $47 million proposed by Gov. Brian Kemp for the project in his budget recommendation, a figure which includes purchasing 33,000 new ballot printers.
“I was a little shocked by that change in direction,” state Sen. Clint Dixon, chair of the Senate Appropriations Government Operations Subcommittee, said of Raffensperger’s suggestion. “We’ve got some studying to do on that one.”
Georgia bought the Dominion voting equipment for about $107 million under a 10-year contract in 2019. The state will bid on a new voting system in 2028, Raffensperger said.
If lawmakers instead decide on the software update, the $15 million cost would pay for technicians to install it on over 36,000 touchscreens and scanners across the state. The update would replace the software version that’s still in use across Georgia after it was copied in Coffee County by experts hired by allies of Donald Trump in January 2021.
That software was then widely distributed to election skeptics. Cybersecurity experts said the Coffee County breach created the possibility for hackers to create malware that could alter results.
An audit of November’s election showed a nearly identical match between the printed text of voters' choices and the count by voting machines.
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