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A touchscreen voting machine in Sandy Springs, Georgia during the May 2018 primary elections. With the mid-term Congress primaries warming amid Russian hacking warnings, about one in five Americans will vote against machines of their votes.
John Bazemore / AP
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John Bazemore / AP
A touchscreen voting machine in Sandy Springs, Georgia during the May 2018 primary elections. With the mid-term Congress primaries warming amid Russian hacking warnings, about one in five Americans will vote against machines of their votes.
John Bazemore / AP
Georgia will continue to use its touchscreen voting machines ahead of schedule despite technology-related security concerns, a US District Court judge ordered on Monday.
But Judge Amy Totenberg blamed Georgia and state election officials for managing electoral security.
Georgia is one of 14 states that use machines without a paper trail that voters can check themselves.
Cybersecurity experts largely agree that these machines are vulnerable to potential hackers. If the hackers manipulate the vote totals, or if another error occurs, there is no backup.
Although Judge Amy Totenberg said that this could allay her concerns about the state's security of elections, she decided not to switch from a touchscreen computer to a paper vote before the start of the advance poll. Georgia on October 15th.
The judge said that such a rollout of ballots would "seriously test" the capacity of election officials and "saturate polls with work and voters," leading to "disaffection and frustration".
"There is nothing like bureaucratic confusion and long queues to sharpen a citizen," Totenberg said.
Some Georgian voters and election security advocates filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the state's electoral security. He appoints Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a candidate for governorship in Georgia, and other election officials.
Voters and supporters have argued that the Russians' attempts to hack American electoral systems in 2016 posed a new urgent threat to the electoral integrity that the state did not think of in 2002 when it was implemented the touch screen voting machines.
An NPR / Marist poll found that 56 percent of Americans believe that electronic voting machines make elections less secure and 68 percent believe that elections have boosted election security.
Georgia was not one of the 21 states whose electoral systems were targeted by Russian hackers in 2016, according to the state secretary's office. But an indictment by Special Adviser Robert Mueller of 12 Russian intelligence agents revealed that they had visited county electoral websites in Georgia and other states.
Totenberg urged state election officials for their safety management, saying they had "buried their heads in the sand".
"The Court is gravely concerned by the pace of state reaction to the serious vulnerabilities of its voting system," the judge said.
Lawyers from a group of plaintiffs, led by the Coalition for Good Governance, said they would not appeal, saying they would be disappointed that the machines would be used in the November 6 elections.
"Judge Totenberg's decision is broadly consistent with the positions taken by the Coalition – particularly the urgent need for Georgia, as soon as possible, to move to paper newsletters," said Atlanta's attorney. , Bruce P. Brown.
Kemp set up a commission earlier this year to study how best to move Georgia to a ballot voting system before the 2020 presidential election. He has long been confronted with questions about how whose Office of the Secretary of State, under his direction, had managed cybersecurity.
Kemp and other election officials have argued that the touchscreen machines are secure and that passing ballots on paper so close to the November 6 elections would actually pose a security threat.
Ballots "are not the holy grail of voter integrity," defense lawyer John Salter told a hearing last week.
Kemp faces Democrat Stacey Abrams in the race for governorship in Georgia.
"With this decision behind us," Kemp said in a statement released Tuesday morning, "we will continue our preparations for a safe and orderly election in November.
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