The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration has asked Gov. Brian Kemp to call a special session of the General Assembly to address the unresolved problem with the QR Code used to tabulate election ballots.
Elections and Registration Board Chair Jay Hanley said a copy of a resolution approved by the Board went out on Friday by regular mail and by email.
Hanley said he received confirmation of receipt of the email shortly after he sent it.
The Board decided at its regular meeting on Monday, at the request of Board Member Ken Davis, to send the request to Kemp. Hanley agreed to write a resolution based on that discussion.
Davis, who is the Democratic Party nominee to the Board, said he does not feel he will be able to vote to certify election results unless the legislature fixes the problem with the QR Code.
In 2024, the General Assembly passed legislation saying that the QR Code had to be removed from ballots effective July 1 of 2026, but it never funded the required changes in equipment and procedures to make that happen. The scanners read the QR Code, not the actual votes shown on the ballot.
The House passed, on April 2, the final day of the session, a House version of Senate Bill 214, which would have postponed until 2028 the deadline for removing the QR Code from the ballots, but the Senate did not take up that version of the bill before adjourning.
Both of Oconee County House members, Republican Houston Gaines from District 120 and Democrat Eric Gisler from District 121, voted in favor of the House substitute for the version of SB 214 that had passed the Senate. The Senate never took up the House version of the legislation.
Republican Bill Cowsert, who represents Oconee County in the Senate in District 46, had voted in favor of the Senate version of SB 214. That bill was a combination of 26 pieces of proposed legislation.
Resolution
At the end of the meeting on Monday, Hanley asked Director of Elections and Registration Sharon Gregg if she had “gotten any communication from the state on that, or are you all kind of in a holding pattern on that?” He was referring to the QR Code.
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| Davis 4/6/2026 |
“Basically, that's what they said. Just wait until we basically hear from them,” she said. “The law says we are to have a statewide voting system that's statewide–the same across the state. So no county can do their own thing.”
“So we have to abide by the law,” she said, “and they will inform us when there's any changes made.”
“It's a big deal. It's a big concern,” Davis said. “If you think about it, I don't know how we can certify a vote and not be compliant with the law. And the way the law states right now, there's no way we're looking to do that.”
“I would make a recommendation that all of us, and hopefully we can get together with some of the other managers, and lobby Brian Kemp,” Davis said.
“We have to get this in place,” Davis said, “because I'm not going to feel comfortable trying to certify something and knowing that it's not compliant. And I think that'll blow everything apart.”
“I know that they're looking at calling a special session,” Hanley said.
“Can we as a Board draft a resolution or something showing our support of it?” Davis asked.
The Board agreed that Hanley would draft such a resolution, in consultation with County Attorney Daniel Haygood.
The resolution states that the General Assembly adjourned without addressing the deadline for eliminating the QR Code and that the members Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration “respectfully urge Gov. Brian Kemp to call lawmakers into special session following the upcoming primaries to address elections legislation.”
Three Speakers
At the beginning of the meeting on Monday, during the public comment period, three citizens addressed the Board.
Victoria Cruz said “We know that (President Donald) Trump has two executive orders out, the last one having to do with mail-out balloting, the first one primarily having to do with voter databases and proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in the future.”
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| Smith 4/6/2026 |
“Now, the public outcry is that it's already illegal for noncitizens to vote,” she said. “That's correct. But are they? I think as more and more states figure it out, start investigating, at least the ones who want to investigate, they'll find a lot of them.”
“We feel privileged here in Georgia because the laws here are very good,” Cruz said. “They really are. I'm not saying that the laws are bad for you, but we have to look at what's happening in the wider country. There is a lot of weakness in voter registration lists and these need to be cleaned up, and that's why we have these executive orders.”
“I'll echo Victoria's remark about Trump's EO,” Stephen Aleshire said, “and only add that part of the EO also includes a barcode on mail-in balloting via the postal service for better tracking and to assure what the actual pathway has been for the mail-in ballot.”
“Mid-cycle, off-year elections are notorious for low voter turnout,” Aleshire continued. “So instead of complaining about it, it'd be helpful if this Board would adopt the Fulton County model, which is to use the emergency access system” to notify voters of voting times and locations.
“So you might consider that as a means of encouraging voters to participate in off-year elections,” he said.
“I want to support what I heard Dr. Cruz and Dr. Aleshire say,” Marian Smith said, “and I look forward to hearing what your responses are to what they said. I think they've done a lot of homework, and I appreciate their work.”
She said she had canvassed for President Trump, “knocked on hundreds of doors, but enough to know that we saw probably in 25 percent to 30 percent of the doors that we knocked on, we were told, ‘Oh, they don't live here,’ or, ‘They haven't lived here in the last 10 years,’ or, ‘Oh, they're dead’."
“And so I'm just curious,” Smith said. “What actions you're taking to clean up the roll books?”
Later in the meeting, Gregg outlined the procedures her office and the Office of the Secretary of States uses to maintain voters lists.
Video
The video below is of the entire meeting of the Board of Elections and Registration on April 6, held in the Commission Chamber of the county Administrative Building.
Discussion of the QR code issue begins at 34:21 in the video.
Cruz began speaking at 1:56 in the video and was followed by Aleshire, and then Smith.
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