Decoding Georgia Bills - No to QR Codes Yes to Watermark

In the January issue of Authentication & Brand News™ (ABN), we wrote an article titled ‘Election, Democracy, and Authentication’, as 2024 is an important year for elections worldwide. This article explores a few recent developments.

Georgia Republican bills

In a highly controversial political climate where election integrity is at the forefront of many voters' concerns, senators in the Republican-controlled Georgia, in the US, are pushing a spate of bills that would significantly alter ballot counting in the state. The aim is to increase voter confidence in paper ballots.

The bills include:

• House Bill 974, introduced in January, requires Georgia's Secretary of State to develop and implement a state-wide system allowing the voting public to scan paper ballots.
• Senate Bill 189 and House Bill 975 require using the text portion of paper ballots to tabulate votes, rather than QR codes.
• House Bill 976 would require all paper ballots to have a visible watermark security feature.
• House Bill 977 would expand the number of election contests subject to risk-limiting audits.