State Election Board adopts new rules for voting machines, despite concerns that some rules needed adjusting

Georgia’s elections board on Wednesday approved a set of rule changes to govern the use of new voting machines that are being rushed out statewide for the state’s fast-approaching presidential primaries in March.
State Election Board members acknowledged some of the newly adopted rules may need further fine tuning; however, they were approved regardless, because of the tight deadline for rolling out the new machines.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says they would consider amending the rules later. Any further changes would require another 30-day period for public comments before the board could vote to approve them.
Georgia’s presidential primaries are set for March 24, but advance voting begins three weeks earlier on March 2. The state is racing to distribute more than 33,000 new machines, which combine touchscreen voting with printed ballots, to Georgia’s 159 counties.
Concerns about election security caused a federal judge last year to order Georgia to replace its outdated, paperless voting system before any ballots are cast in 2020.

An attorney for Raffensperger’s office told the judge last week that deliveries should be completed by mid-February. County election officials still have to test the new machines and train poll workers ahead of the primaries.
Many of the changes adopted Wednesday updated rules by replacing references to the old voting system with references to the new one.

One rule, for example, specifies how the new machines are to be stored, transported and tested, as well as how polling places are to be set up.
Another change updates absentee voting procedures to comply with a state law passed last year in response to criticism during the 2018 election cycle over absentee ballots being rejected for such minor reasons as signatures not exactly matching those on file with election officials.

The new rule requires county election officials to try to contact voters whose absentee ballots are rejected by email and telephone to notify them of the rejection. Previously only a mailed notice was required.

For additional information regarding the new rules, visit sos.ga.gov.