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Wednesday Hearing on Athens Using Paper Ballots

Georgia.gov

State elections officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, are in Athens at this hour, hearing arguments in a contentious case involving the state’s voting machines. WUGA’s Martin Matheny reports.

At issue is the Athens Clarke County Board of Elections’ decision to forgo using the electronic ballot marking devices, opting instead for paper ballots.

Most of the morning’s hearing was focused on the testimony of Chris Harvey, elections director for the Secretary of State’s office. Attorneys representing both the state and the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections questioned Harvey on a number of topics, including any guidance he or other staff had given to counties regarding election privacy, and whether any such guidance was given in time to allow counties to legally change polling locations.

Many of the one hundred-plus attendees at the meeting wore stickers that said, “Stand with ACC” and “Protect the secret ballot,” and a number of local elected officials were also in the crowd.

The board chair said the board found it “impracticable” when using the new machines to protect ballot secrecy and allow sufficient monitoring to prevent tampering. The secretary of state then set Wednesday’s hearing to determine whether the county board's decision violates state laws and election rules. The ACC Board of Elections voted 3-2 last week to last week to use hand marked paper ballots rather than the new voting machines for the presidential primary.

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