GA SB189

Removes the Secretary of State as an ex officio nonvoting member of the State Election Board and adds the Secretary of State to the list of officials who must receive email notice of emergency rule considerations

Prohibits State Election Board members, the Secretary of State, county/municipal election superintendents and registrars, and their employees from transacting business with companies contracted to provide voting equipment or ballot tabulation, auditing, processing, or scanning services, where they or their family hold a substantial interest (more than 5% ownership)

Requires that the human-readable text portion or machine marks on ballots produced by ballot marking devices — rather than QR codes, bar codes, or similar machine coding — be used for official vote tabulation, recounts, and audits, effective July 1, 2026

Establishes new absentee ballot handling requirements, including chain of custody documentation, tamper-resistant sealed containers with numbered seals, mandatory tabulation deadlines (results reported by 8:00 P.M. on election day or within one hour of poll closing), and procedures for requesting high-resolution (600+ DPI) scanned ballot images after final certification

Directs the Secretary of State to create a pilot program for auditing paper ballot images using optical character recognition technology to verify the human-readable text of ballots, with audit findings reported prior to final election certification