Georgia county ditches new voting machines for paper ballots

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Kate Brumback, Associated Press
Updated 12:50 am CST, Wednesday, March 4, 2020

ATLANTA (AP) — With early voting already underway, election officials in a Georgia county have voted to switch from the state's new voting machines to hand-marked paper ballots amid concerns about ballot secrecy.

The Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections voted 3-2 Tuesday to have voters mark their selections by hand on paper ballots that will be tallied by a scanner for the presidential primary election, board Chair Jesse Evans confirmed to The Associated Press in a statement sent by text message late Tuesday.

The board found it “impracticable to use the new electronic voting system to meet the state and federal legal requirements” that it “protect absolute ballot secrecy while allowing sufficient monitoring of the ballot marking devices in use," Evans wrote.

The primary is the first time Georgia's new voting machines and election management system are being used statewide. Early voting began Monday for the March 24 contest.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Georgia-county-ditches-new-voting-machines-for-15103325.php

[Linda Ed]

1. Paper Ballots

should be used in EVERY state! Good for Georgia!!

[CottonBear]

3. Guess who's from Athens-Clarke County? GA Gov. Brian Kemp. Hah!

I hate Kemp. These new voting machines are just another way he was going to steal yet another election.

If you haven’t been keeping up, one of the old style voting machines was most likely hacked at Kemp’s Athens-Clarke County voting precinct at the Winterville Depot during the gubernatorial election contest versus Stacey Abrams. Winterville, a small town in Clarke County, is where Brian Kemp lives.

Edit: The town of Winterville, GA is in Athens-Clarke County, GA. The small town retained its charter when the Athens and Clarke governments combined.

Fun fact:
Athens-Clarke County is the smallest county east of the Mississippi River and Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/mystery-missing-votes-deepens-congress-investigates-georgia/x4OTY0ylxfA0Z0Rg6wjkyN/amp.html

To find a clue about what might have gone wrong with Georgia’s election last fall, look no further than voting machine No. 3 at the Winterville Train Depot outside Athens.

On machine No. 3, Republicans won every race. On each of the other six machines in that precinct, Democrats won every race.


The odds of an anomaly that large are less than 1 in 1 million, according to a statistician’s analysis in court documents. The strange results would disappear if votes for Democratic and Republican candidates were flipped on machine No. 3.


It just so happens that this occurred in Republican Brian Kemp’s home precinct, where he initially had a problem voting when his yellow voter access card didn’t work because a poll worker forgot to activate it. At the time, Kemp was secretary of state — Georgia’s top election official — and running for governor in a tight contest with Democrat Stacey Abrams.

[CottonBear]

4. The new machines print out a paper ballot which is then scanned.

So, WHY is a machine needed at all? (Answer: to allow the GA GOP to steal elections.)

Just use hand-marked paper ballots and then scan them, just like the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections wisely voted to do.

[diva77]

10. THIS!!!! Also, the massive budgets for the corporate machines are a way to steal taxpayer money

and bribe elections officials.

K&R for exposure

[CottonBear]

2. Yes! Athens-Clarke County, GA is very progressive!

Last edited Wed Mar 4, 2020, 06:27 AM - Edit history (1)

Athens-Clarke County, GA is the home of the University of Georgia, the nation’s oldest land grant university. A-CC is a beautiful blue island in a sea of red in Northeast Georgia.


The city and county governments are combined, with the town of Winterville retaining its charter.

[CottonBear]

6. So, how will the hand-marked ballots be assigned a QR code if the machines aren't used to print? N/T

[unc70]

7. Why do you need a QR code?

[CottonBear]

8. I was responding to the now deleted post.

Last edited Wed Mar 4, 2020, 03:17 PM - Edit history (1)

The new ballots that are printed by the computer voting device, apparently have a code which is somehow scanned by the scanner device.

I don’t know if the hand marked ballots will have such a code or how/if they will be scanned.

[Luciferous]

9. Good!

[oasis]

11. Dems have a chance to win fair and square.