A known flaw in Georgia's voting equipment that could let someone match voters to their ballots will remain unaddressed when Fulton County early voting opens Oct. 13.
The Georgia State Election Board adjourned its Friday, Oct. 2, meeting without voting on a proposal from the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party. The plan would have required county poll workers to collect and shuffle paper ballots before scanning them, breaking the sequence that makes the privacy breach possible.
Two of the board's four Republican members opposed the measure. Vice Chair Janelle King said it would burden county election offices and raised concerns about ballots falling out during shuffling and going uncounted. Carolyn Roddy, the Republican Party's appointee, said the proposal would do more harm than good.
"I'm not saying that ballot secrecy is not important, but I think, 'Cause no harm,' is a great motto to take in this," Roddy said at the meeting.
A second proposal by board member Salleigh Grubbs, which would have required voters to drop ballots into secure boxes for poll workers to shuffle and scan later, also failed to advance. Cherokee County Elections Director Anne Dover told the board that implementing it in her county alone would require 147 additional poll workers and cost roughly $80,000, the Georgia Recorder reported.
The five-member board has four Republicans and one Democrat, Sara Tindall Ghazal. Ghazal said it was too close to the midterm elections for a software update and opposed federal intervention in state elections.
What the flaw means
Security researchers discovered the vulnerability in 2022. Georgia's voting machines, developed by Dominion Voting Systems (now Liberty Vote), randomize printed ballots and their electronic images. But a software flaw allows those records to be reordered into the sequence they were cast. Combined with publicly available data such as early voting lists, someone could determine how specific people voted.
The flaw does not allow votes to be changed and does not affect election results, the AP reported. But Georgia's Constitution requires elections "shall be by secret ballot," and state law mandates voting "in absolute secrecy."
Princeton University researcher Max Springer reported in August that he used a publicly available AI tool to reverse the shuffling of electronic ballot records from Georgia's May primary, matching voters to their ballots in many cases, according to GPB News. Georgia is the only state using the system statewide.
Stalled funding
The software update itself is free, but installing it on machines statewide requires personnel. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asked state lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session to set aside $15 million for the work. Legislators never approved the funds.
The Election Board passed a separate 3-2 resolution on Sept. 28 urging Raffensperger to upgrade the software and calling on the Trump administration for help. Board Executive Director James Mills then sent letters dated Sept. 30 to the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, asking them to declare Georgia's voting system illegal and compel the update, GPB reported.
Raffensperger's office pushed back. A spokesperson said in a statement that those serious about election security do not inject chaos at the last minute. The secretary of state's office said it was not notified before the letters were sent.
Election security expert Ben Adida, executive director of the nonprofit VotingWorks, told the board that a last-minute software update could cause bigger problems. He called the proposal to upgrade software with two weeks to go "really fraught and risky."
Local early voting details
Fulton County announced 32 early voting locations for the Nov. 3 General/Special Election. Early voting runs from Tuesday, Oct. 13, through Friday, Oct. 30. Three locations serve Alpharetta and Milton:
- Alpharetta Branch Library, 10 Park Plaza
- Fulton County Health and Human Services – North, 4700 North Point Parkway, Alpharetta
- Milton Library, 855 Mayfield Road
Hours are Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
The Election Board plans to reconvene next week, though no specific date has been confirmed.
