Georgia's vote-counting method will soon be banned. Lawmakers will try to find a fix this week

By — Kate Brumback, Associated Press Kate Brumback, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/georgias-vote-counting-method-will-soon-be-banned-lawmakers-will-try-to-find-a-fix-this-week Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Georgia's vote-counting method will soon be banned. Lawmakers will try to find a fix this week Politics Jun 14, 2026 12:22 PM EDT ATLANTA (AP) — When Georgia lawmakers return to the Capitol this week for a special session, they are expected to try to clean up an election mess of their own making. The election system used throughout the political battleground state relies on a QR code printed on ballots to tally the votes. Legislators passed a law two years ago barring the use of that barcode for the official vote count beyond July 1 of this year, but no replacement method of tabulating votes was ever implemented. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. One of the instructions Republican Gov. Brian Kemp laid out for lawmakers when he called the special session is to "address issues created" by that law. Meanwhile, the secretary of state's office and the State Election Board have further muddied the waters by issuing conflicting guidance for county election officials about how votes should be cast and counted. If the issues are not resolved soon, there is likely to be confusion and possibly litigation over the state's elections after July 1. A special election to fill a U.S. House seat is scheduled for that month. How did we get here? Georgia's current election system was first used statewide during the 2020 primary. After the general election that year, when Republican President Donald Trump narrowly lost the state to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump and his supporters claimed without evidence that the machines had deleted or switched votes. Trump's backers continued to complain about the touchscreen voting machines, with some loyalists espousing wild conspiracy theories. Election integrity advocates also criticized the machines, saying they are vulnerable to hacking and that voters cannot be sure their selections are accurately reflected because people can't read QR codes. WATCH: New report shows misinformation is a threat to election security Republican lawmakers in 2024 tried to address those concerns by passing a law banning barcodes for the "official tabulation count" after July 1, 2026. But in the two years since, neither the secretary of state's office nor the General Assembly has taken action to comply. Now, the deadline is fast approaching and a major midterm election looms. Trump singled out those machines, which are used in at least some counties in more than a dozen states, in his first executive order on elections shortly after he took office for his second term in January 2025. That order has been blocked by multiple courts and is not being enforced. Th