Augusta attorney David Hudson, speaking during the recent Georgia Press Association convention at Jekyll Island, informed his audience of several basic changes that may have attracted little notice in Georgia’s new election reform law.
Consider these changes in the Senate Bill 202 law that Hudson reported:
· Once images are made of scanned ballots by the voting system, they become public records. You can’t ascertain the voter’s identity, thus preserving the secret ballot, but you can see the numbers for recounts.
· Any person who intentionally observes an elector casting a ballot to see how the elector voted shall be guilty of a felony.
· It is illegal to use photographic or electronic equipment to photograph or record a ballot while it is being voted or after the voting is completed. The violation is a misdemeanor.
· Members of the public may monitor the processing and scanning of absentee ballots. But what they see can only be communicated to an elections official who needs the information to carry out his or her duties. (Hudson considers this “problematic” and asks if it is “constitutional.” Finally, he questions, what good is doing the processing and scanning and then only being allowed to tell just the elections official who may or may not be ethical?)
