ATLANTA — Georgia Democrats are not happy with a new bill to extend the deadline for taking QR codes off ballot because the proposed bill does a lot more than just that.
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot was live at the state Capitol with how what was supposed to be a simple fix got a lot more complicated.
Gov. Brian Kemp called the special session for specific reasons, one of them being to fix the QR ballot code problem.
Lawmakers gathered inside a committee room to hear Sylvania Republican State Sen. Max Burns solution to the state’s QR code problem, long a target of election deniers.
Two years ago, they passed a bill that requires the state to remove QR codes from ballots by July 1 of this year, but only for two years. Lawmakers did nothing about it.
So Kemp brought them into special session to fix it.
Burns’ bill does, by extending the deadline out to Jan. 1, 2028, but then Burns added more.
He wants to create a committee to research and recommend replacement for Georgia’s current and aging Dominion voting machines.
“This allows us to realize that this committee simply makes the recommendation, does the legwork, understands the specifications and standards. The next legislative session in January of 27 will make those decisions,” Burns said.
But Democrats are worried because, while the bill details how committee members will be selected, there are no provisions for requiring members of the minority party be on it.
In essence, they say, they’re keeping Democrats out of the voting machine replacement process.
“If the Republicans were committed to having Democrats on this committee, they would put it in the law. They would put it in statute,” State Sen. Kim Jackson, a Stone Mountain Democrat. “And so the fact that they are reserving the opportunity to exclude us lets me know they’re not actually interested in creating a diverse committee that has minority representation.”
The bill passed that committee along party lines. It could get a vote Saturday.
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