Atlanta – President Donald Trump’s Executive order Seeking to review how US elections are executed includes a somewhat dark reference to the way the votes are counted. The voting equipment, he says, should not use tickets that include “a rapid bar code or code.”
Those few technical words could have a great impact.
The voting machines that give all voters a vote with one of those codes are used in hundreds of counties in 19 states. Three of them, Georgia, South Carolina and Delaware, use machines throughout the state.
Some computer scientists, democrats and leftist electoral activists have expressed concern about their use, but those that promote conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election They have been the strongest, claiming without evidence that manipulation has already happened. Trump, justifying the movement, he said in The order that his intention was to “protect electoral integrity.”
Even some electoral officials who have guaranteed the precision of systems that use coded ballots have said that it is time to move forward because many voters do not trust them.
The Secretary of State of Colorado, the Democrat Jena Griswold, decided in 2019 to stop using the tickets with QR codes, saying at that time that the voters “should have the greatest confidence that their vote will count.” Amanda González, the Secretary of Elections in Colorado Jefferson County, does not support Trump’s order, but believes that the Colorado decision was a step that was worth it.
“We can eliminate confusion,” González said. “At the end of the day, that’s what I want: elections that are free, fair, transparent.”
Either voting by mail or in person, millions of voters throughout the country mark their selections through the use of a pen to complete the ovals in paper tickets. These tickets feed through a tabulation machine to count the votes and can be recovered later if a count is needed.
In other places, people who vote in person use a touch screen machine to mark their choices and then obtain a paper record of their votes that includes a bar code or a QR code. A tab scan the code to count the vote.
The electoral officials who use that team say that it is safe and that routinely perform tests to ensure that the results coincide with the votes in the paper records, which they retain. However, encoded ballots have become an objective of electoral conspiracy theories.
“I think the problem is very exaggerated,” said Lawrence Norden, from the Brennan Justice Center. “I understand why you can attract certain parts of the public that do not understand how this works, but I think it is being used to try to question certain electoral results in the past.”
Those who push conspiracy theories related to the 2020 elections have clung to a Long -term legal battle About Georgia’s voting system. In that case, a computer scientist at the University of Michigan testified that An attacker could manipulate The QR encodes to change voter selections and install malware on the machines.
J. Alex Halderman’s testimony has been used to amplify Trump’s false claims than the Choice of 2020 It was stolen, although there is no evidence that any of the weaknesses he found was exploited.
The Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has defended the state voting system as insurance. In March, the judge who presided over Halderman’s testimony declined to block The use of Georgia’s voting team, but said that the case had “identified substantial concerns about the administration, maintenance and safety of the electronic voting system in the person of Georgia.”
Trump’s electoral executive order is being challenged in multiple demands. One has resulted in a court order Against a disposition that sought to require citizen proof when people are registered to vote.
The section that prohibits the tickets that use QR or bar codes is based on a Trump directive for a federal agency, the Electoral Assistance Commission of the United Stateswhich establishes voluntary guidelines for voting systems. Not all states follow them.
Some of the demands say that Trump does not have the authority to direct the commission because it was established by Congress as an independent agency.
While the courts classify it, the commission guidelines say that the ballots that use bars codes or QR codes must include a printed list of voter selections so that they can be verified.
Trump’s order exempts the voting equipment used by voters with disabilities, but does not promise federal money to help the states and counties to get away from the systems that use QR or bar codes.
“In the long run, it would be good if the sellers moved away from coding, but there is already evidence that they do that,” said Pamela Smith, president of the group verified the vote.
Kim Dennison, Benton County Electoral Coordinator, Arkansas, estimated that updating the County voting system would cost around $ 400,000 and would take up to a year.
Dennison said he has used teams that are based on the ballots coded since his work began 15 years ago and has never found an inaccurate result during the tests after the choice.
“I trust total and completely in the team is doing exactly what you are supposed to do and not falsify reports,” he said. “You can’t change a vote once it has been cast.”
In Luzerne County of Pennsylvania, the voting machines produced by a QR code will be used in this year’s primaries. But officials expect an update of the manufacturer at the end of this year to eliminate the code before the November elections.
The County Manager, Romilda Crocamo, said the officials had not received any complaints from the voters about the QR codes, but decided to make the change when Dominion’s voting systems offered the update.
The most populous county in the country, Los Angeles, uses a system with a QR code that developed for a decade and was deployed in 2020 after approving a state test and certification program.
The main electoral official of the County, Dean Logan, said that the system exceeded federal guidelines at that time and meets many of the standards described in the most recent approved in 2021. He said that the audits after the election have constantly confirmed their precision.
Modifying or replacing it would be expensive and would take years, he said. The current voting equipment is valued at $ 140 million.
Perhaps nowhere the problem has been more controversial than Georgia, a presidential battlefield. Use the same QR code voting system throughout the state.
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the coalition for good governance, a main plaintiff in the dispute on the system, said that her group has not taken a position in Trump’s executive order, but said that the Federal Electoral Assistance Commission should stop certifying machines that use Barcodes.
The Secretary of State said that the voting system follows Georgia’s law, which requires federal certification at the time the system is purchased. However, the Legislature controlled by Republicans has voted to prohibit the use of QR codes, but did not assign any money to make the change, an estimated cost of $ 66 million.
Republicans said they want to replace the system when the current contract expires in 2028, but their law is still scheduled to enter into force next year. The state representative of the Republican Party, Victor Anderson, said there is no realistic way to “avoid the coming train accident.”
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Associated Press Christina A. Cassidy writer contributed to this report.
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Kramon is a member of Associated Press’s body/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America It is a non -profit national service program that places journalists in local writing rooms to inform about undercover issues. Follow Kramon in X: @Charlottekramon.
