Georgia awards contract for new voting machines

Georgia awarded a $150 million contract to voting equipment manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems to implement a “verified paper ballot system” in the state prior to the March 2020 presidential primaries, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office announced on Monday.

This will involve replacing current voting machines in Georgia with machines from Dominion that print a paper ballot after the voter has made their choices to further secure the vote against outside interference.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement that “election security is my top priority,” adding that “we look forward to working with national and local election security experts to institute best practices and to continue to safeguard all aspects of physical and cyber-security in an ever-changing threat environment.”

Raffensperger’s office noted in a statement that the machines will be in place by March 24, 2020, the date of Georgia’s Presidential Preference Primary. The Secretary of State’s office has already partnered with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and private cyber companies to improve election security in the state, with several Georgia counties working with DHS to provide security assessments of election offices.

The new machines are being put in place after a new law in April that requires elections in Georgia to “be conducted with the use of scanning ballots marked by electronic ballot markers and tabulated by using ballot scanners for voting at the polls and for absentee ballots cast in person.” The electronic ballots markers are required to “produce paper ballots.”