Georgia extends deadline to replace QR code voting system until 2028

Georgia lawmakers pushed back the state’s QR-code voting deadline Tuesday, delaying a switch that had been set to take effect by July 1, 2026. The move came days before the state would have fallen out of compliance with its own election code and keeps Georgia’s current voting system in place for another presidential-style midterm cycle.

The legislation now goes to Gov. Brian Kemp. It would extend the deadline to the 2028 election cycle and create a committee to recommend the next voting system by the end of January 2027, a schedule designed to give officials time to settle on equipment before the next round of statewide contests.

Georgia’s voting system uses ballot-marking devices that print paper ballots with a QR code and human-readable text. The QR codes are what election officials use to tabulate votes, while audits also review the written selections on the ballot. Republican lawmakers had approved the original QR-code phaseout in 2024, but they never provided the money needed to make the change during the 2025 and 2026 regular sessions.

Cost was central to the delay. State officials said in 2024 that changing the current system could run into the tens of millions of dollars, while a full replacement could cost as much as $300 million. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, estimated in 2025 that updating all the required equipment to remove QR codes would take roughly $66 million in state funds.

The Senate approved the bill 33-19, and the measure later advanced through the chamber in largely partisan votes. In Senate committee debate, supporters called the plan a compromise between the House, Senate and governor’s office. The bill also made its way through the Senate Ethics Committee in an 8-4 party-line vote.

Critics, including Democrats and voting-rights advocates, say extending the deadline prolongs the state’s vulnerability. Voters cannot read the QR code on their ballots to verify how their vote is counted, and hand-count proposals would be slow and prone to mistakes. Under the version sent to Kemp, hand recounts in most statewide races would be required only when the margin falls within 0.5 percent.

The issue rose to the top of the special session after Kemp called lawmakers back to Atlanta in June to deal with the QR-code deadline. He also urged them to consider redrawing congressional and state legislative districts for 2028 after a major U.S. Supreme Court redistricting ruling, but Republican leaders abandoned that effort, saying there was not enough time and that pending legal challenges to Georgia’s current maps remained unresolved.