Georgia Eyeing Going Back to Paper Ballots for Election


Most of the country has phased out paper ballots in favor of more advanced voting systems, but legislation has been proposed in Georgia to go back to paper basics in order safeguard their elections, since paper ballots allow results to be verified. State Republican Rep. Scot Turner has introduced legislation to get rid of Georgia’s electronic touch-screen voting machines and switch to paper ballots that voters would fill out and then be counted by optical scan machines. Turner said, "You can try and hack these machines all day long. But that piece of paper that you can touch and feel and look at is going to give the voter the confidence that the election is actually being recorded the way it should have been." But Georgia's top election official, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, says their touch screen machines are accurate and efficient and replacing them with paper would be a step backward. Georgia is one of five states that use touchscreens without a paper trail backup, while Nevada uses them with a paper trail. The rest of the nation uses a patchwork of different voting systems.


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