Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks at a budget hearing Wednesday at the state Capitol. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
Election season in Georgia is here, with statewide primary elections less than four months away and the campaigning for those contests well underway.
But as Georgians prepare to cast their ballots, a key question remains unclear: Will the state be able to eliminate QR codes from ballots to comply with a 2024 state election law?
During the second day of budget hearings at the state Capitol, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger appeared before lawmakers to discuss Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposed budget for his office. The hearings will continue into Thursday, with Attorney General Chris Carr and other law enforcement and public safety-related agency heads scheduled to present.
Kemp’s budget proposal for the secretary of state’s office includes $1.8 million for optical character recognition technology that can be used to scan the human-readable text on ballots and $5 million toward a hand count verifying the outcomes of two statewide races during the 2026 cycle, Raffensperger told lawmakers Wednesday.
“These funds strengthen election integrity, transparency and public confidence,” Raffensperger said. “We are requesting that these funds be made recurring to ensure Georgia can continue to conduct audits that verify election outcomes that reinforce voter confidence.”
However, the plan appears to fall short of a 2024 law that prevents QR codes from being used to tabulate ballots after June 30. However, lawmakers failed to appropriate the funds necessary to make the switch before the Legislature adjourned last year.
The use of QR codes on ballots has faced criticism from cybersecurity experts and proponents of hand-marked paper ballots, who say that ballots should be counted based on text that can be deciphered by humans.
During the 2025 legislative session, Raffensperger estimated that updating all the necessary equipment to implement that change will require roughly $66 million in state funds, more than double the $32.5 million estimate that was floated when lawmakers considered the proposal in 2023. The money would be used to fund the purchase of 33,000 new ballot printers, along with new optical scanners and updated memory cards needed to tabulate ballots with human-readable text.
Lawmakers weigh seismic changes to Georgia’s voting equipment
Election administrators have told the Georgia Recorder that they need a minimum of six months to comfortably implement the new technology. Under that timeline, any changes to Georgia’s voting equipment would need to be finalized by mid-April.
Under Raffensperger’s proposal, ballots would continue to be tabulated using QR coded, while the hand recounts and text audits would help verify the QR codes’ accuracy. However, this plan received pushback from some Senate Republicans, who argue that it would not fulfill the requirements of the law.
“In November of this year, when our voters cast votes, what are we certifying?” said Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican and cosponsor of the 2024 measure. “Are we certifying a ballot that is being tabulated with a QR code or not?”
“The General Assembly has not funded a single dollar to upgrade the system,” Raffensperger replied. “If you do fund that system, then we could talk about alternatives. But it’s not been funded and it’s not reflected in the governor’s budget.”
Other election bills, including a proposal to switch Georgia’s voting system to hand-marked paper ballots and new restrictions on AI-generated election misinformation, are left pending from last year. The Senate Ethics Committee, which hears most election-related bills, is scheduled to hold its first meeting of the 2026 legislative session Thursday.
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