<aside> 🗳️ Introduction to This Report

This report aims to build confidence in Georgia’s voting system by shedding light on the processes, checks, and quality assurance steps in place that ensure fair and free elections, and, ultimately, a stronger democracy.

In this report you will find a detailed overview of the processes and offices and personnel that govern the counting and certification processes, as well as a timeline of key dates. We have also identified potential process and personnel vulnerabilities to better help our pro-democracy partners monitor our elections and target corrective action to protect the integrity of our elections.

Please note, throughout the report, the blue ballot icon indicates research on legal and election process questions. The orange ballot icon indicates strategic research and potential threats. If you would like to share any feedback on this report or have questions for our research team, contact us at: info[at]informingdemocracy[dot]org.

</aside>

Georgia Overview

Georgia, across its 159 counties, operates a decentralized election infrastructure that is governed by statute and supplemented by rules and regulations adopted by the State Election Board. Notably, in Georgia, the canvass and the tabulation occur at the same time, rather than as a part of a separate review afterwards.

Unlike some other jurisdictions, such as Virginia, for example, where local election administration is uniform in its structure, the structure of election administration at the county level in Georgia varies. By statutory default, each county has a Board of Registrars and an Election Superintendent, the latter role being filled by the county’s Probate Judge [1]. Many counties, however, have either Boards of Elections or Boards of Elections and Registration that were established by local legislation enacted by the Georgia General Assembly. [2] O.C.G.A. § 21-2-40. This local legislation, however, can create further variations in the size and composition of the entity assigned the powers and duties of the Election Superintendent.

These laws and the distributed structure of election administration have provided many guardrails for ensuring Georgia’s elections are secure and well run. For example, Georgia now requires all machines to print a paper record and has robust risk limiting audit procedures. However, since the 2020 — and even since the 2022 — election, changes have been enacted that have hollowed out some of the robust protections that have ensured free and fair elections in Georgia.

Legislative changes have, in some instances, been counterproductive to conducting elections in a secure and effective manner. Some of these have been nonsensical, like requiring visible watermarks on ballots that already are already printed on security paper that can be verified with infrared scanners — presumably so these watermarks can fix the nonexistent problem of voters somehow not knowing how the ballot that they just picked up off the printer of the ballot-marking device came to be in their hand.

Others have placed pressure on local election officials, such as imposing burdensome new chain of custody documentation, leading to an exodus of experience. Parallel to those changes, subjective standards have been adopted that empower individuals filling those vacancies created by that exodus with discretionary powers.

In and of themselves, these changes don’t break the counting and certification processes. Like other states using the “gold standard” for tabulation audits, Georgia utilizes risk limiting audits that use the physical ballots to ensure the accuracy of the original machine tabulation. There are also still clear deadlines under the law that, on paper, require these processes to stay on time and on track, but new demands without countervailing resources are upping the pressure on local election officials and increasing the likelihood of simple mistakes that can be weaponized. Furthermore, the discretion granted by these changes may be directly weaponized for nefarious purposes.

This cycle, election deniers may try to exploit gray areas in the law, as well as attempt to manufacture new ones. Georgia should be closely monitored during the post-election process to ensure election fairness. This report will be updated throughout the fall to reflect new rules, ongoing litigation, and research on election officials.

Footnotes

Offices + Personnel

This section provides information about the officers and personnel in charge of election administration in Georgia. Click on each office below for complete details. You can also review a brief overview here:

Election Administration Processes

This section provides information about the election administration processes that key Georgia election officials at the county and state levels undertake after polls close on Election Day. These processes must follow a strict cadence, prescribed by statute, that ensures that election results are timely certified and accurately reflect the will of voters. Click on each process section below for complete details.