Keep calm and check your ballot, Georgia

Reports of voting machines switching choices from Democratic to Republican have circulated across the South in recent weeks — including stories out of Texas and South Carolina. The Associated Press has reported on the phenomenon of alleged vote flipping, but election officials have not found evidence of deliberate manipulation. The isolated problems that do surface have generally been tied to tapping errors or screen calibration issues, not a coordinated effort to steal votes.

Georgia officials say they have found no evidence that the state’s machines are switching votes. So don’t be nervous — but do be careful. Here is how to make sure your vote is correct before it counts.

At the scanner table, you are not finished voting yet. When you tap your choices on a Georgia ballot-marking device, the screen does not cast anything. The machine prints a paper ballot — your selections in plain words next to a QR code — and that printed sheet is what gets scanned, tabulated, and kept as the paper record for audits. Hold it and read it before it leaves your hand.

Here is the flow: You show your photo ID at the check-in table, sign the electronic voter certificate, and get a voter access card. You insert that card into the device, make your choices, review the screen, and press print; then you remove the printed ballot and the card. Poll workers may direct you to review the printed paper ballot before you feed it into the scanner.

The scanner reads the QR code, but Georgia’s post-election audits can include manual inspection of the human-readable text. So the words on the page are the part you can actually read and verify, and they are what the audit checks. Look at the plain-text summary under each race. That is the moment you can see, in your own eyes, whether the paper says what you chose.

If the printed names under any race are not what you picked — or if it is the wrong ballot altogether — do not feed the sheet into the scanner. Tell the poll worker at the scanner table, plainly, what is off. The worker spoils the paper ballot and has you make the selections again on the device so you get a corrected ballot. You are not out of chances. Georgia voters may spoil and recast a printed ballot before scanning if there is a problem; the only cutoff is the moment the ballot goes into the scanner. Scan it first, though, and the vote is final. A voter who puts the printed ballot into the scanner before reporting a problem is deemed to have voted, and there is no second ballot.

If the machine will not print or will not scan, start with the poll worker at your site. If the problem is not being fixed, the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline is 1-866-687-8683 (866-OUR-VOTE). To report a voting-machine problem to the state, call the Secretary of State’s Elections Division at 404-656-2871 in metro Atlanta or 877-725-9797 elsewhere in Georgia. When an equipment malfunction causes a ballot error, the poll officer documents it on a Secretary of State form, and the poll manager must promptly tell the election superintendent if one or more ballot-marking devices are tied to a significant number of incidents.

You have from October 13 through Friday, October 30 to vote early in person; Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. And the printed paper is the system in use this cycle: state officials have pointed to a deadline of January 1, 2028, to replace the QR-code ballot-marking system.

When the words under each race match what you chose, scan the sheet and go. You can walk out knowing the paper you just cast said the same thing you told the screen.