You've likely heard that the Georgia General Assembly will be considering a return to hand-marked paper ballots for elections in 2028. The Joint Election Equipment Specifications and Standards Committee has been holding public hearings and gathering public testimony ahead of making recommendations to the entire general assembly.
GCB members have been attending the hearings held at the capitol, others of us have written testimony, and GCB passed a resolution on this issue at our annual conference and convention in October.
At the committee public hearings vendors of voting equipment have been demonstrating their machines, hoping theirs will be chosen since machines will still be used to print and tabulate ballots. Betsy and DJ, our members who were able to attend some of the committee meetings, learned that several of those machines would be accessible to disabled voters. But before the committee makes its recommendations more of us need to be able to assess how well this equipment will work for blind and low vision voters.
Since the vendors are willing to meet with us, we hoped this could be in person, so that we could try the equipment. However, the legislative committee's deadline for final public input is next Friday, November 6, so our plan has changed.
There will be a Zoom meeting this coming Monday, November 2, 2026, at 7:00 PM. At least two of the vendors will be there to demonstrate their machines for us and we'll have time to ask questions. We wish this didn't need to happen so soon, but we hope you'll be able to attend. The more of us who can be there, the more information we'll be able to gather to share with the committee before their deadline.
See below for the Zoom details. If you have questions, contact Betsy Grenevitch at 678-862-3876.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82776730035?pwd=lWs5MY5lKHUVFDfToa8TlTbZFn18BL
Meeting ID: 827 7673 0035
Passcode: 654321
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