Georgia legislators and the state’s elections chief lacked a plan Wednesday to stop using computer QR codes for counting ballots before a July 1 deadline.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told a budget committee that the General Assembly hasn’t provided any money to upgrade Georgia’s voting system, which displays candidates on touchscreens and then prints paper ballots with QR codes containing voters’ choices.

But a state law passed two years ago mandates that QR codes can’t be used to count ballots in elections after July 1, 2026.

Critics of Georgia’s election system say voters can’t verify their votes from unreadable QR codes, which are used for the official vote count.

Lawmakers haven’t yet introduced a bill that would spend money or outline an alternative to the state’s current election technology.

Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, suggested that every vote could be counted by hand this November — usually over 4 million ballots in midterm elections.

“If we were able to count all of them, would you not just be able to certify the hand count there and that suffice to meet the Senate bill’s request of not counting the QR code?” Tillery asked Raffensperger.

Raffensperger responded that each ballot can include 16 or 20 races, making it expensive and time-consuming to count each of them by hand. He said he would look into the taxpayer cost of that kind of hand count.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s proposed budget includes $5 million for a statewide hand recount of two races in November, but his spending plan didn’t include money to remove QR codes.

“The General Assembly has not funded a single dollar to upgrade the system. If you do fund that system, we could talk about alternatives,” Raffensperger said.

Raffensperger supported verifying ballots by using text-recognition software to check the results read from QR codes, a method first used after the 2024 election. The text-recognition audit found a nearly identical match to the election night count that relied on QR codes.

Kemp’s budget proposal also includes $1.8 million for a similar kind of vote check after the general election in November.

Hand-counts usually have more discrepancies than machine counts because they rely on humans, but they are another method of verifying results without depending on technology that could be manipulated or misprogrammed.

State representatives studied options for removing QR codes during meetings across the state last year, but they haven’t issued any recommendations. They’re still evaluating how to move forward, said House Governmental Affairs Chair Victor Anderson, R-Cornelia.

“The study committee and the House Governmental Affairs Committee are diligently evaluating legislative options to ensure compliance with the Legislature’s will and to guarantee that Georgia has the most accurate, trustworthy and secure elections possible,” Anderson said.

Lawmakers have until the end of this year’s legislative session in early April to pass a bill to stop using QR codes. Without a new law, voters can’t use Georgia’s current touchscreen voting system for elections later this year.

Several election security organizations are asking legislators to switch to paper ballots filled out by hand. But Raffensperger and election officials say Georgia’s current voting system is safe and accurate.

Capitol Beat is a nonprofit news service operated by the Georgia Press Educational Foundation that provides coverage of state government to newspapers throughout Georgia. For more information visit capitol-beat.org.