Georgia’s taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill for yet more government waste— this time in the form of a counterproductive $52 million modification to our voting system that does little to improve election security while imposing massive costs on counties and the state.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s proposal is being pushed through the General Assembly’s appropriations process under the guise of election security, yet it fails to address the core vulnerabilities in the current Dominion touchscreen voting system. Lawmakers must reject this needless spending and demand a simple, cost-effective, legally compliant and secure voting solution.
The Price of Failure: What the $52 Million Really Buys
Raffensperger is asking taxpayers to spend over $50 million to modify a system that has been outdated, insecure and legally noncompliant since the day it was rolled out in 2020. The proposal primarily aims to remove QR codes from printed ballots— a change mandated by 2024 in S.B. 189— but fails to address the more serious election security vulnerabilities identified by cybersecurity experts, or the failures of the system to comply with other state and federal laws.
Instead of using the currently owned scanner and server components in proven configuration adopted by most of the nation (hand marked ballots counted by such scanners), the Secretary’s plan forces Georgia’s 159 counties to spend millions in additional local funds to update and maintain aging equipment. The bulk of the state spending, without consideration of the local burden, includes:
- $25 million for new printers to couple with 31,000+ existing touchscreens to create new ballot-marking device (BMD) units to print larger ballots.
- $15 million for modified software installation which does little to mitigate many severe existing cybersecurity threats beyond removing the QR codes, which is one of many attack vectors.
- $4 million for touchscreen back up battery replacements—2020 battery backups for touchscreens are at end of life, far earlier than anticipated, and of little value to begin with.
- $600,000 to replace county election servers, despite the 2020 20-year financing arrangement for this outdated equipment.
Modification That Does Little to Solve Security Concerns
Georgia’s BMD system was found to be extremely vulnerable to hacking risks in a 2021 analysis by leading cybersecurity expert Dr. J. Alex Halderman. His findings, confirmed by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in 2022, detailed severe vulnerabilities in the Dominion system. Among them: insider threats, encryption flaws and ballot secrecy issues.
Despite these ongoing alarming risks, Raffensperger’s $52 million proposal does too little to address them. Instead, it replaces computer-printed QR codes with computer-printed ovals on untrustworthy ballots— still marked by a vulnerable touchscreen computer. That means most voters cannot and do not actually verify whether their ballot printed for scanning reflects their actual choices. The system remains vulnerable to a high risk of electronic undetectable manipulation.
To make matters worse, the update requires counties to bear much of the logistical and financial burden of software installation, maintenance and training— at the local level, not included in the $52 million budget request. And with multiple statewide elections scheduled in 2025, this rushed overhaul could create chaos for county election offices.
The Conservative Solution is to stop the spending boondoggle and adopt the “Gold Standard” of scanned paper ballots
While some activists demand Georgia “ditch Dominion” entirely, the fiscally responsible near-term option is already available: Georgia can eliminate the costly touchscreen machines and use hand-marked paper ballots counted by existing Dominion scanners— just as 75 percent of American voters already do.
This common-sense solution:
- Eliminates unnecessary costs – Counties would save millions by avoiding the expense of maintaining and updating 31,000+ touchscreen devices and new printers.
- Enhances security and voter confidence – Scanned hand-marked ballots are trustworthy and can be audited to verify that the correct outcomes have been declared.
- Ensure compliance with Georgia law – Eliminating the legal requirement BMDs for most voters while retaining them for accessibility purposes would allow Georgia to get into compliance with federal and state laws on ballot generation and tabulation.
Conservatives Must Lead on Election Integrity
Georgia’s Republican-led legislature has long championed fiscal responsibility and election integrity. Now is the time to prove it. Approving this $52 million waste would be an endorsement of failed government spending, ensuring counties remain stuck with an unreliable, costly voting system for years to come, and the flailing voter confidence that is inevitable by sticking with this unreliable system.
Secretary Raffensperger has mismanaged Georgia’s voting system from the start. His office selected an election system built on 2005 standards, one that has failed to earn the trust of voters across the political spectrum. If the Secretary truly cared about election integrity, he would support a secure, auditable system—not this band-aid approach that does little to address real vulnerabilities.
Marilyn Marks is the executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance.
