ATLANTA — Georgia election officers mentioned Wednesday that they would wish six to 9 months to put in new software program and {hardware} to replace the state’s voting system to guard in opposition to safety flaws, pushing again in opposition to calls to replace the system earlier than the 2024 election cycle.

“It’s really not an upgrade,” state Deputy Elections Director Michael Barnes mentioned of the work wanted on 30,000 voting machines. “This really would require us to fully rebuild the system.”

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has mentioned the state should wait till 2025, however critics proceed to pile on, with Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and the state Republican Party becoming a member of the refrain in latest days. They say ready till after subsequent 12 months’s presidential election would depart the voting tools open to assault.

A bunch referred to as the Coalition for Good Governance has been suing to throw out the state’s digital poll marking system. The coalition and the Morgan County Democratic Committee requested the State Elections Board on Wednesday to let counties use hand-marked paper ballots when county officers consider there’s been a safety breach. The board rejected that proposal as past its authorized authority however created a committee to suggest guidelines or legal guidelines for reporting safety breaches.

Barnes instructed the board Wednesday that the state’s ballot pad system, which ballot staff use to verify in voters and supply them with ballots coded to digital playing cards, is incompatible with the brand new software program. Barnes additionally mentioned counties might want to receive new laptop tools.

State Elections Director Blake Evans instructed the board that the state will pilot the brand new system throughout some metropolis elections in November, assuming ballot pad compatibility issues are solved.

Barnes mentioned the state has to start out designing ballots for the March presidential main in December, which means it might have roughly solely a one-month window to put in software program and new {hardware} after the November pilot.

The vulnerabilities within the Dominion Voting Systems tools have been recognized by J. Alex Halderman, an knowledgeable witness within the coalition’s lawsuit difficult the constitutionality of Georgia’s election system. Halderman has mentioned there’s no proof the vulnerabilities have been exploited to alter the result of previous elections.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency final 12 months printed an advisory based mostly on these findings that urges election officers to take steps to mitigate the dangers “as soon as possible.”

One challenge is a pc forensics staff employed by allies of former President Donald Trump who traveled to Coffee County in south Georgia in January 2021. They accessed voting tools and copied software program and knowledge. Evidence exhibits that materials was uploaded to a server and accessed by an unknown variety of folks.

“Voters can’t wait. America can’t wait,” Jeanne Dufort of the Morgan County Democrats instructed the board Wednesday in arguing for her proposal. “The path to the 2024 presidential election runs through Georgia. It is unfathomable why anyone would refuse to protect our elections if they had the power to act.”

Charlene McGowan, the chief lawyer for secretary of state’s workplace, downplayed dangers.

“This equipment has now been safely used for the past four years and in two statewide elections,” she instructed the board.

She and different election officers argue that any assaults are “operationally infeasible” as a result of folks must bodily entry giant numbers of voting machines.

“The impact of any potential attack is limited to a single device at a time,” McGowan mentioned.

Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the lieutenant governor and the state Republican Party all attacked the choice of Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, in latest days.

The state Republican Party earlier this month rolled out a platform demanding hand-marked and hand-counted ballots, in addition to letting particular person counties decide out of utilizing Dominion machines. The platform is fueled by disproven Trump-backed conspiracy theories that machines have been used to steal the 2020 election from Trump.

“It’s unacceptable that our state’s top elections official has failed to address known vulnerabilities in our voting machines for two years,” mentioned Loeffler, who now funds a conservative political group. “But it’s incomprehensible that he has now announced, to every criminal and malign foreign actor, that the security flaws will not be fixed for another two years.”

Although Raffensperger received his Republican main in opposition to a Trump-backed opponent, Trump continues to assault him.

“The recent politicized attacks criticizing the security of our system are being made by those who want to sow distrust in the integrity of our elections and cast doubt on the accuracy of the results,” McGowan mentioned Wednesday.

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