ATLANTA — Georgia has a new voter registration system.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the launch of the system at the state Capitol on Thursday.
The Georgia Registered Voter Information System, or GARViS, is a back-end management system designed to keep track of voter information.
Raffensperger said the system will help “to ensure accurate, fair and honest elections for all Georgians.”
How does GARViS work?
Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Secretary of State's Office explained how the process would work.
Identifying information like driver’s licenses and social security numbers are stored in a system, which is aimed at preventing “dead voting” or “double voting,” Sterling said.
Sterling said voter's information will be protected using a FedRAMP, which is a cloud server that can be constantly monitored.
Raffensperger stressed that the voting system is not static.
“We have intentionally built GARViS for continuous improvements,” Raffensperger said. “This product will live for years to come, and it will have the ability to adapt and even do more to help our state, counties and most importantly, our voters.”
Voters may not notice a significant change but Sterling said local county election officials will.
The system was designed from the input of county officials, who are typically responsible for processing voter applications and absentee ballots, according to Dr. Jesse Harris with the secretary’s office.
The chief operating officer said ENET, Georgia's legacy system, will likely be done away with.
When will the new system be in place?
Sterling said some county elections offices had already been trained on GARViS and were using the new system.
"We’re still in what’s called the 'warranty period' right now, which means we still have little things we’re trying to fix, little things we’re working on," Sterling said. “We’re active in the system, we’ve run our first elections on this, we’re in early voting in 35 counties using this system.”
Raffensperger said the new system will be used statewide by the 2024 presidential primary. An updated MyVoterPage will also allow voters to access precinct cards and sample ballots so they don’t have to wait on the elections office. It will also be easier to change voter information online per elections workers.
"The previous method was so old and never got finished," Deb Cox, Lowndes County elections director, said. "There were parts that didn’t work and you had to use workarounds to get specific jobs done. It was grueling."
Cox said she's already said she's noticed the new system's benefits, especially for advance voting.
"It’s fast, smooth, easy to use," she said. "It’s almost intuitive."