ATLANTA (AP) – A federal judge ruled Monday that every polling place in Georgia must have at least one updated paper backup of the electronic pollbooks that are used to check voters in.
U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg called the requirement “a limited common sense remedy to the real and repetitive voting impediments” faced by voters and “the substantial threat that they will face from these impediments anew in the 2020 general election” if the paper backups are not in place.
Voting integrity activists had asked the judge to order the change, arguing that malfunctioning electronic pollbooks created bottlenecks that resulted in voters waiting in long lines during the primary election in June and runoff election in August.
The electronic pollbooks are part of the new election system the state bought last year from Dominion Voting Systems for more than $100 million.
The order requires Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to generate and provide to election superintendents in each county a list of electors updated at the close of the in-person early voting period to contain all the information in the electronic pollbook. The secretary of state is to instruct the election superintendents to provide at least on paper backup at each polling place on Election Day.