Georgia lawmakers race to fix ballot-counting deadline before July 2026 loss

Georgia lawmakers are rushing to clean up an election problem they created themselves. A 2024 law set July 1, 2026, as the deadline to eliminate the QR codes Georgia uses to count ballots on its touchscreen voting system, but the General Assembly adjourned its regular 2026 session without a fix or money for a replacement.

The issue is bluntly technical and politically loaded. Georgia voters mark ballots on touchscreen machines, and the system prints a paper ballot with a QR code that voting equipment reads during tabulation. State law now says that code has to go, but election officials have warned that if lawmakers do not act, Georgia could face a legal gap in how to count votes after July 1. That would hit the state just months before the November 2026 midterms, when voters will choose a governor and decide U.S. House and Senate races.

The pressure has built for Gov. Brian Kemp to call lawmakers back, even as the Legislature continues to split over what should replace the current setup. In May 2026, the Republican-controlled Georgia State Election Board rejected a proposal to force all 159 counties to abandon touchscreens and switch to hand-marked paper ballots, a move critics said could open the state to lawsuits. The board’s problem is limited, though: the Georgia Supreme Court ruled on June 10, 2025, that the board exceeded its authority when it adopted rules requiring hand counts and expanding election inquiries, making a legislative fix more urgent because the board cannot rewrite election law on its own.

The state’s own audit has been a counterweight to the push for change. The Secretary of State’s 2024 ballot-image audit reported 100% accuracy for QR-code ballots in the November 2024 general election, and said the small number of discrepancies it found were on hand-marked paper ballots. That finding has not ended the debate, but it has sharpened it, because the state is weighing whether to abandon a system that, by its own review, counted accurately.

A House blue-ribbon study committee recommended in February 2026 that the General Assembly give voters the option of using pre-printed, hand-marked paper ballots on Election Day beginning with the 2026 general election. But the Secretary of State’s office has previously estimated that a hand-marked paper ballot system could cost Georgia taxpayers up to $224 million over 10 years, underscoring the fiscal stakes behind the rewrite.

With multiple election bills already filed for the 2025-2026 session, including measures on voting equipment, recounts and audits, the fight over Georgia’s ballot-counting rules has become one of the state’s most consequential election fights before the next statewide vote.