ATLANTA — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is striking back against criticism that he doesn’t have the state ready to comply with a new law to remove QR codes from voters’ ballots.
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot spoke to Raffensperger, who said he’s working to get Georgia ready to vote in time for Monday’s start to early voting.
Ballots at those polling stations will have the QR codes on them still. The new law said the QR codes don’t have to be removed until July 1.
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Elections workers in all 159 Georgia counties are doing, running logic and accuracy tests on every voting machine to make sure they are prepared and ready for the start of early voting.
Raffenserperger told Elliot that despite the law about removing QR codes from ballots, the state legislature hasn’t funded the process for two years now.
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In a letter to the State Elections Board, Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones blamed Raffensperger for the lack of compliance.
“Raffensperger has taken no action to prepare the state to comply with this law, I consider this a significant failure on his part,” Jones wrote. “It seems clear that the secretary’s inaction leaves Georgia’s election in an unsettled state of affairs.”
Raffensperger told Channel 2 Action News that the comments from Jones are just political.
“Obviously, the Lt. Governor wanted to lead on that,” Raffensperger said. Both men are running to replace current Gov. Brian Kemp in November. “He led until he just dropped the football and didn’t do anything.”
Raffensperger also accused Jones of working with his friends in the Georgia General Assembly to pass bills “that were not aligned, and then they just never really funded it, and they just left after this session.”
In the meantime, the Sec. of State says he’s keeping his office focused on the May primaries and that they’ll wait to see what happens with the July 1 QR code removal deadline.
“After June 30, we’ll decide what the path is going forward, and I’m sure that all the key stakeholders are going to be weighing in on that,” Raffensperger said. “It’s just a shame the General Assembly didn’t do their job.”
Elliot spoke to Kemp about a potential special session in the legislature to handle the issue, but the governor said his office hasn’t made a decision yet, but will soon.
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