ATLANTA — Editor's Note: The above video is from a previous version of this story.
A Georgia Senate Committee has taken its next steps in the proposed ban on QR codes from election ballots on Thursday. Senators on the committee passed the bill with a haste vote of 8-2 despite criticism from the secretary of state.
Last week, lawmakers presented the bill to Georgia State Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, where they grilled him, raising concerns on both sides about the state's computerized voting system.
"If we’re going to do something like that, it would be physically impossible to have that done for this election cycle," Raffensperger previously told the committee.
The bill was first introduced onto the floor in 2023. Republicans have introduced legislation to eliminate QR codes – previously saying the squarish printed image is unreadable by the human eye.
It is still far from becoming a law as it has to pass on the Senate floor and would need to pass on the House floor for a vote on Crossover Day.
On Thursday, committee members were under the impression that local election offices around the state would need new equipment for machines to be able to read text-only for the ballots. Last week, Raffensperger argued for the ban to actually work, thousands of voting systems in the state of Georgia would need to be switched out with upgraded technology.
Georgia currently uses Dominion Voting Systems, which includes touchscreen voting machines that print ballots with a human-readable summary of voters’ selections and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes. Every voting precinct in Georgia uses scanners to read the QR codes of printed ballots.
The system is currently standing trial for a 2017 lawsuit of outdated systems, but those filing suit feel the current system is no more secure or reliable than older systems.
Committee members also spoke with representatives from Clear Ballot, known for their audits of voting systems and Dominion Voting Systems competitors, who said that improving machines to read just text-only ballots instead of bar codes and QR Codes could take about six to seven months.
Members also spoke with Bartow County election officials where they got a better idea of how the change would impact more local offices if it were to happen as soon as possible.
Despite Thursday's efforts, Raffensperger told the committee last week that he would support their efforts after the 2024 presidential election cycle is over. For now, with a presidential primary scheduled for March 12 and the main election just 10 months away, Georgia's Secretary of State is focused on the task at hand with newly drawn district maps.
"We have in Georgia 159 counties. We have over 2500 different voting systems. You also have all the different voting machines," Raffensperger previously said. "You’re talking about a major change. We’re already in the election cycle of 2024.