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ATLANTA – President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul however U.S. elections are tally includes a somewhat obscure notation to the mode votes are counted. Voting equipment, it says, should not usage ballots that see “a barcode oregon quick-response code.”
Those fewer method words could person a large impact.
Voting machines that springiness each voters a ballot with 1 of those codes are utilized successful hundreds of counties crossed 19 states. Three of them -- Georgia, South Carolina and Delaware -- usage the machines statewide.
Some machine scientists, Democrats and left-leaning predetermination activists person raised concerns astir their use, but those pushing conspiracy theories astir the 2020 statesmanlike election person been the loudest, claiming without grounds that manipulation has already occurred. Trump, successful justifying the move, said successful the order that his volition was “to support predetermination integrity.”
Even immoderate predetermination officials who person vouched for the accuracy of systems that usage coded ballots person said it’s clip to determination connected due to the fact that excessively galore voters don’t spot them.
Colorado’s caput of state, Democrat Jena Griswold, decided successful 2019 to halt utilizing ballots with QR codes, saying astatine the clip that voters “should person the utmost assurance that their ballot volition count.” Amanda Gonzalez, the elections clerk successful Colorado’s Jefferson County, doesn't enactment Trump's bid but believes Colorado's determination was a worthwhile step.
“We tin conscionable destruct confusion,” Gonzalez said. “At the extremity of the day, that’s what I privation -- elections that are free, fair, transparent.”
Target for misinformation
Whether voting by message oregon successful person, millions of voters crossed the state people their selections by utilizing a pen to capable successful ovals connected insubstantial ballots. Those ballots are past fed done a tabulating instrumentality to tally the votes and tin beryllium retrieved aboriginal if a recount is needed.
In different places, radical voting successful idiosyncratic usage a touch-screen instrumentality to people their choices and past get a insubstantial grounds of their votes that includes a barcode oregon QR code. A tabulator scans the codification to tally the vote.
Election officials who usage that instrumentality accidental it’s unafraid and that they routinely execute tests to guarantee the results lucifer the votes connected the insubstantial records, which they retain. The coded ballots person nevertheless go a people of predetermination conspiracy theories.
“I deliberation the occupation is ace exaggerated,” said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice. “I recognize wherefore it tin entreaty to definite parts of the nationalist who don’t recognize the mode this works, but I deliberation it’s being utilized to effort to question definite predetermination results successful the past.”
Those pushing conspiracy theories related to the 2020 predetermination person latched onto a long-running ineligible battle implicit Georgia's voting system. In that case, a University of Michigan machine idiosyncratic testified that an attacker could tamper with the QR codes to alteration elector selections and instal malware connected the machines.
The grounds from J. Alex Halderman has been utilized to amplify Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, adjacent though determination is nary grounds that immoderate of the weaknesses helium recovered were exploited.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has defended the state's voting strategy arsenic secure. In March, the justice who presided implicit Halderman's grounds declined to block the usage of Georgia’s voting instrumentality but said the lawsuit had “identified important concerns astir the administration, attraction and information of Georgia’s physics in-person voting system.”
Can the enforcement bid prohibition coded ballots?
Trump’s predetermination enforcement bid is being challenged successful aggregate lawsuits. One has resulted successful a preliminary injunction against a proviso that sought to necessitate impervious of citizenship erstwhile radical registry to vote.
The conception banning ballots that usage QR oregon barcodes relies connected a Trump directive to a national agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which sets voluntary guidelines for voting systems. Not each states travel them.
Some of the lawsuits accidental Trump doesn’t person the authorization to nonstop the committee due to the fact that it was established by Congress arsenic an autarkic agency.
While the courts benignant that out, the commission’s guidelines accidental ballots utilizing barcodes oregon QR codes should see a printed database of the voters’ selections truthful they tin beryllium checked.
Trump’s bid exempts voting instrumentality utilized by voters with disabilities, but it promises nary national wealth to assistance states and counties displacement distant from systems utilizing QR oregon barcodes.
“In the agelong run, it would beryllium bully if vendors moved distant from encoding, but there’s already grounds of them doing that,” said Pamela Smith, president of the radical Verified Voting.
Counties successful limbo
Kim Dennison, predetermination coordinator of Benton County, Arkansas, estimated that updating the county's voting strategy would outgo astir $400,000 and instrumentality up to a year.
Dennison said she has utilized instrumentality that relies connected coded ballots since she started her occupation 15 years agone and has ne'er recovered an inaccurate effect during postelection testing.
“I afloat and wholly spot the instrumentality is doing precisely what it’s expected to beryllium doing and not falsifying reports,” she said. “You cannot alteration a ballot erstwhile it’s been cast.”
In Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County, voting machines that nutrient a QR codification volition beryllium utilized successful this year’s primary. But officials expect a manufacturer’s update aboriginal this twelvemonth to region the codification earlier the November elections.
County Manager Romilda Crocamo said officials had not received immoderate complaints from voters astir QR codes but decided to marque the alteration erstwhile Dominion Voting Systems offered the update.
The nation’s astir populous county, Los Angeles, uses a strategy with a QR codification that it developed implicit a decennary and deployed successful 2020 aft passing a authorities investigating and certification program.
The county’s main predetermination official, Dean Logan, said the strategy exceeded national guidelines astatine the clip and meets galore of the standards outlined successful the astir caller ones approved successful 2021. He said postelection audits person consistently confirmed its accuracy.
Modifying oregon replacing it would beryllium costly and instrumentality years, helium said. The county’s existent voting instrumentality is valued astatine $140 million.
‘Train Wreck’ successful Georgia?
Perhaps obscurity has the contented been much contentious than Georgia, a statesmanlike battleground. It uses the aforesaid QR codification voting strategy crossed the state.
Marilyn Marks, enforcement manager of the Coalition for Good Governance, a pb plaintiff successful the litigation implicit the system, said her radical has not taken a presumption connected Trump's enforcement bid but said the national Election Assistance Commission should halt certifying machines that usage barcodes.
The caput of authorities said the voting strategy follows Georgia law, which requires national certification astatine the clip the strategy is bought. Nevertheless, the Republican-controlled legislature has voted to prohibition the usage of QR codes but did not allocate immoderate wealth to marque the alteration — a outgo estimated astatine $66 million.
Republicans said they privation to regenerate the strategy erstwhile the existent declaration expires successful 2028, but their instrumentality is inactive scheduled to instrumentality effect adjacent year. GOP authorities Rep. Victor Anderson said determination is nary realistic mode to “prevent the bid wreck that’s coming.”
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Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy contributed to this report.
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Kramon is simply a corps subordinate for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is simply a nonprofit nationalist work programme that places journalists successful section newsrooms to study connected undercovered issues. Follow Kramon connected X: @charlottekramon.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.
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