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The Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Election Procedures led by Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, met for the first time recently, tapping discontent with the digital voting system Georgia used when Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in 2020.

It will provide a platform for Fleming, who filed this month to raise campaign funds to run for secretary of state, which oversees elections. Burns’ office noted that Fleming used to work as chief of staff there, making him “exceptionally qualified� to oversee this committee.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has been a magnet for election critics due to his assurances about the Dominion Voting SystemÐÔÊӽ紫ý security. Neither his statements nor TrumpÐÔÊӽ紫ý victory last year have quelled the concerns. Nor, it seems, has onetime Trump personal lawyer Rudy GiulianiÐÔÊӽ紫ý loss in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Fulton County election workers after he falsely accused them of election fraud.

Phoebe Eckhart of Roswell expressed a concern shared by several others who spoke at TuesdayÐÔÊӽ紫ý (July 15) hearing, the first of a half dozen that will occur around the state. She said she had repeatedly watched a video of a ballot count inside a building in Fulton.

What she saw made her deeply suspicious: workers repeatedly tabulating the paper ballots printed by the Dominion voting terminals.

They were “taking the ballots and putting them in the machine, just over and over and over again,� she said. “It was fraud.�

Eckhart then expressed the frustration that is driving Republican lawmakers to revisit election law. She attended a GOP breakfast five years ago where a speaker outlined the partyÐÔÊӽ紫ý top issues.

“And the very first one was election integrity,� Eckhart said. Yet there is still “no election integrity,� she told the lawmakers. “Please, please, please, can you do something about this?�

Others, including Brad Carver, a state GOP leader, criticized the various options for casting a ballot in Georgia, including early voting. It costs too much and should be reduced to two weeks, he told the committee. “Three weeks of early voting is a very long period of time, itÐÔÊӽ紫ý very costly to a lot of our local governments,â€� said Carver, who chairs the GOPÐÔÊӽ紫ý 6th Congressional District, which includes parts of Cobb and Fulton counties.

The lone Democrat on the seven-member committee, Atlanta Rep. Saira Draper, countered with other methods of cutting costs that do not reduce voter access, such as ranked-choice voting. That would have eliminated the need for the state Public Service Commission runoff election that was occurring the same day as the hearing, she noted.

Only 2.4% of GeorgiaÐÔÊӽ紫ý 8.4 million voters cast a ballot in the PSC primary last month, and the turnout for the runoff, when fewer than 114,000 cast a ballot, was even smaller.

Carver had already expressed criticism of ranked-choice voting and of absentee voting, which he claimed was not secure. Draper challenged him to produce evidence of that. “I don’t believe in fearmongering as a basis for policy changes,� she said.

Others from the public echoed that sentiment.

Brian Nunez, with the Southern Poverty Law Center, cautioned against passing new election laws based upon rumors about rigged elections.

“A widespread false narrative about fraud in our elections persists,� he said. “The allegations have been proven time and time again to be unfounded.�

Karen Davenport of Decatur criticized an election law passed last year that enables mass voter challenges, saying it empowers “conspiracy theorists� and amounts to voter intimidation. She implored lawmakers not to erect barriers to voting.

“Elected state officials should strive to make voting easier and not more difficult for Georgians,� she said.

In addition to costs, Republican lawmakers on the panel had questions about GeorgiaÐÔÊӽ紫ý participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a multistate data-sharing compact designed to root out voters who cast ballots in more than one state. Among their concerns was the security of the encrypted personal information shared between states.

But the computerized Dominion system was at the center of complaints. A common critique at TuesdayÐÔÊӽ紫ý (July 15) hearing was the way the system uses a Quick Response (QR) code to transfer voter intent into each polling placeÐÔÊӽ紫ý database. After a voter casts a ballot, the terminal prints a piece of paper with the code — a matrix of black and white squares — in addition to recording the voterÐÔÊӽ紫ý intent on a data card. The voter then places the paper into a QR reader, producing another record of the vote.

One manÐÔÊӽ紫ý T-shirt summed up the concern about this technology, which renders ballots inscrutable to the human eye: The words “I votedâ€� were followed by an image of a QR code. Then, came the punch line: “Can you read this?â€�

Such concerns have helped drive doubts about election results.

When Draper pressed Carver about whether he believed Biden had legitimately won the 2020 election, he said he did not believe it. The room at the Capitol then erupted in cheers.

Last year, Georgia lawmakers banned using QR codes to tabulate ballots starting with the 2026 elections, so the state must modify its system.

Many want paper ballots, counted by hand. Field Searcy, co-founder of Georgians for Truth, tried and failed to get Republican party leaders to use paper ballots for their own officer selection process when he attended the state GOP convention in May. Party leaders instead used electronic “clickers,� saying they lacked the resources to do a hand-count, even though Searcy said he had brought 3,000 printed ballots and 120 people trained to count them.

The convention crowd had jeered when party leaders announced they would be using electronic voting instead of paper. Rank-and-file Republicans were still upset about it Tuesday (July 15), with one complaining to lawmakers about the clickers.

That controversy illustrates the political risk for Republican lawmakers on this issue.

Searcy, who testified on Tuesday, July 15, about his election suspicions, said in an interview that his interest is non-partisan. TrumpÐÔÊӽ紫ý victory in the last election did not assuage his concerns.

He said his clicker failed twice at the convention and noted that there was no way to validate that it accurately recorded his intentions. He had the same concern about the voting terminals Georgia uses on Election Day.

“If we don’t have trust in our elections, we don’t have a country,â€� he said. “If our elections are not secure and trustworthy, itÐÔÊӽ紫ý all a farce.â€�