Voting bar code mismatch

By Bruce Menke

Last week in Northampton County, PA, there was a problem with touchscreen ballots that has relevance to Georgia elections.

Essentially, a mistake was made when building ballots that reversed the type that printed on touchscreen ballot summary cards for some judicial contests, but recorded the votes correctly in the barcode.

In other words, the text did not match the barcode on some voters ballots. The county decided to let the barcode rule, potentially setting an alarming precedent for elections, telling voters their votes will be counted the opposite of what they plainly see on their ballots.

Logic and Accuracy was limited, and did not catch the problem.  This is one of the reasons CGG has proposed rules to the State Election Board to increase the LAT done in GA. Current instructions from the SOS direct counties to do only a fraction of LAT testing required by our statutes. At its October meeting, the SEB declined to adopt our proposed rules, citing the increase in workload as their primary reason. Needless to say, we will be raising the issue at the Dec 19 meeting, drawing their attention to the Northampton County issue.

Kevin Skoglund, one of CGG's experts, wrote up this explanation of what happened, how the county decided to proceed, and what the implications are for future elections.

Securiosa: Election Problems in Northampton County, PA in November 2023

I would ask you to write the SEB and ask them to adopt the proposed LAT rules. Imagine putting local election officials in the position of telling voters "we are counting your vote as the opposite of what you can see on your ballot". Unacceptable, yet a realistic scenario unless the SEB takes action.

Please share this.

•Ed Lindsey - edwardlindsey.seb@gmail.com

•Dr. Jan Johnston - jjohnstonmd.seb@gmail.com

•Sara Tindall Ghazal - saraghazal.seb@gmail.com

•Matt Mashburn - mmashburn@georgia-elections.com

Also copy the paralegal who assists the SEB

•Alexandra Hardin - ahardin@sos.ga.gov