GA lawmaker moves to swap Dominion's voting machines for paper ballots, hand counts

"Remember, it was 2019 that Democrats were advocating for paper ballots," Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore said.

Published: March 4, 2025 6:37pm

A Republican state senator in Georgia introduced a bill to replace Dominion's voting machines with paper ballots and hand counting, encouraging politicians of both political parties to back it.

Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore (R) introduced a bill on Thursday that would swap Dominion Voting Systems' Ballot Marking Devices statewide with paper ballots and manual tabulation.

"A week or two ago, President Trump asked for paper ballots," Moore said Thursday in the state Senate. "And I have a piece of legislation that accomplishes that very thing. It will be on my desk back there if anybody would like to sign it -- Democrats or Republicans. Remember, it was 2019 that Democrats were advocating for paper ballots. So I hope you'll go back to those ways of 2019 and we can all have fair and free elections."

The Senate bill also gives the State Election Board the authority to select a new voting system, rather than the secretary of state's office.

"[A]ll federal, state, and county general primaries and general elections as well as special primaries and special elections in the State of Georgia shall be conducted with the use of the same type of paper ballots used for absentee ballots ... hand marked by the elector, and tabulated in a publicly recorded hand count occurring at the polling place where such ballots were cast," the bill reads.

In June 2023, the Georgia secretary of state's office said that updates for the Dominion Ballot Marking Devices wouldn't occur until this year, after the 2024 election, because "legally, logistically and just risk-management wise, this was the safest wisest course."

A 2021 report became public in June 2023 that showed Dominion voting machines had significant vulnerabilities, which led the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to issue a public advisory in 2022 based on the findings. The report focused in part on vulnerabilities that were found after examining Dominion’s ImageCast X Ballot Marking Devices.