Morgan County Democrats and local candidates join bipartisan effort demanding paper ballots ahead of the 2022 Midterm elections – Morgan County…

A bipartisan effort is underway, with Morgan County Democrats joining in, petitioning Georgias State Election Board to provide emergency paper ballots ahead of the upcoming 2022 elections.

Georgia Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians have joined forces to advocate for the use of paper ballots to enhance election security and post-election audits.

So far, more than 50 federal and state candidates, along with political party committees across the state, have signed on to the petition, including familiar local candidates Brett Mauldin, a Republican running for State Senate District 17, Kacy Morgan, a Democrat running for State Senate District 17, Charles Baldwin, a Democrat running for Morgan County Commissioner District 2, Claudia Crenshaw, a Democrat running for Morgan County School Board District 5, and Tabitha Johnson-Green, a Democrat running for Georgias 10th Congressional District. Even gubernatorial candidates have signed on to the petition, including Republicans David Perdue and Kandiss Taylor.

The Morgan County Democrats committee also signed on to the petition with second vice chair Jeanne Dufort leading the recruitment effort of various political candidates and committees to join the effort.

Trust in elections must be earned. Working with Republican and Libertarian leaders to call on the State Election Board to act swiftly to protect our elections gives me hope that we can find common ground when the stakes are high, said Dufort.

Getting ahead of this, by using the EPB system designed for quick response when elections cant proceed as planned will go a long way towards protecting our vote.

The bipartisan petition comes on the heels of the Federal DHSs Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) conducting a review of serious vulnerabilities found in Georgias Dominion electronic touch-screen voting system. CISAs ongoing investigation was prompted by a study conducted by Dr. Alex Halderman.

According to ABC News, Halderman said in sworn declarations filed publicly with the court that he examined the Dominion Voting Systems machines for 12 weeks and identified multiple severe security flaws that would allow bad actors to install malicious software.

Advocates are also concerned about the recent warning from U.S. officials that Vladimir Putin could interfere with American election infrastructure as revenge for aiding Ukraine in the ongoing war.

Dufort joined the effort in hopes the bipartisan nature of the initiative would persuade state election board officials to act.

The Secretary of State [Brad Raffensperger] is refusing to act. We are calling on the State Election Board to use their authority to protect our elections by temporarily replacing the touchscreens with standard paper ballots for scanning, and expanding audits, said Dufort.

Its how most states use their Dominion voting system to ensure auditability. Our goal is to address the significantly increased risk level in the use of Georgias electronic touchscreen system. Georgia is at higher risk than most states, because we require vulnerable electronic tablets and printers to mark ballots for in-person voting, and we use outside contractors to configure elections centrally while most states configure machines locally.

The bipartisan petition also advocated for paper ballots in the event of an audit after an election.

We also ask that you also require extensive post-election audits of the scanner tabulations of hand marked ballots to verify the outcomes of races, said the petition to the State Election Board. Together these steps will rebuild Georgias voter confidence by providing assurance that Georgias election outcomes reflect the will of the people.

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Morgan County Democrats and local candidates join bipartisan effort demanding paper ballots ahead of the 2022 Midterm elections - Morgan County...