Supporters of the bill say it would allow the public to audit elections, identify mistakes, spot counting errors and hold election officials accountable.
Republican Rep. Shaw Blackmon, the bill’s lead sponsor, said transparency is key to building trust in elections.
“This law would give voters more confidence and help them better understand our process,” said Blackmon, who represents Bonaire. “Both parties wanted a paper ballot because people prefer to work with real documents. And that makes these documents publicly available.”
Under the legislation, original paper ballots created by voting touch screens could be viewed by the public, but to avoid tampering they could only be handled by poll workers who could hold or display them.
Individuals or organizations requesting ballot inspections would be responsible for their costs, which could reach tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to hire additional polling staff for a nationwide inspection. It would be less costly to audit an individual district or a specific batch of ballots.
Local election officials opposed to the measure say ballot inspections put a strain on poll workers and would do more harm than good. Under current state law, original ballot papers can only be unsealed by a court order.
“This latest overstatement would bypass the Georgia courts and allow bad actors to flood our offices with bad faith ballot reviews,” seven members of the Democratic County Electoral Board wrote in a letter sent to lawmakers Friday.
In some states, ballots are treated as public records, such as For example, in Colorado, Wisconsin and Florida, where the news media relied on ballot access to verify the results of the 2000 presidential election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
Ballots are not public records in states like Arizona, where the Republican-held state senate launched a partisan election scrutiny in Maricopa County that ended up finding no evidence to support Trump’s claims that the election was stolen.
DiscoverSee Fulton ballots with unclear markings and how officials governed
Georgia made digital images of ballots publicly available under the state election law passed last year. But the disclosure of Fulton County mail-in ballot pictures published online by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution failed to satisfy Trump supporters, who still want to hunt for fakes.
An investigation by the GBI and election investigators could not find any counterfeit ballots among the batches identified by Republican tellers.
The Coalition for Good Governance, an election security organization, supports efforts to make original ballot papers publicly available to verify vote count accuracy.
“Voters’ trust must be earned and not simply dictated by government officials,” said Marilyn Marks, the group’s executive director. “The last 15 months of declining voter confidence have proven that Georgia’s electoral processes are too opaque.”
Rep. Shea Roberts, who was originally a co-sponsor of the bill, said she withdrew her support over fears it could lead to threats against poll workers.
“It’s tough for me as a person who advocates for transparency, but we are in different times and we need to take the safety of poll workers very seriously,” said Roberts, representing Atlanta.
Death threats and harassment followed the 2020 Georgia election, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s wife and a Fulton associate who was forced into hiding.
Fair Fight Action described the legislation as an “anti-voting” law that would fuel voter skepticism rather than promote honest elections.
“These bills would continue to place unnecessary financial and administrative burdens on poll workers and local electoral authorities to undermine our democratic institutions,” said Hillary Holley, Fair Fight Action organizing director. “It’s time for Georgians to speak up and demand that Georgia Republicans stop playing politics with our democracy.”
The legislation, House Bill 933, has not yet received a hearing but could soon be considered in committee.
It is one of several electoral measures pending in the General Assembly, including proposals to do away with mail-in ballot boxes, call for stricter procedures for handling ballot papers and give the GBI more powers to investigate voter fraud.
