Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
Georgia’s election board director asks the Justice Department to outlaw the state’s QR-code voting machines
James Mills wrote to the Justice Department on October 1, 2026, over the objection of the board’s chairman, asking for a six-month phase-out of machines the federal Election Assistance Commission has certified.
What happened
On October 1, 2026, Georgia State Election Board executive director James Mills asked the Justice Department to “prohibit” the state’s QR-code ballot-marking machines as unlawful under the Help America Vote Act. Mills, a Republican, wrote to Civil Rights chief Harmeet Dhillon, copying Attorney General Blanche and DHS Secretary Mullin. He asked for a “binding six-month deadline” to phase the machines out.
The machines are certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Georgia law bars uncertified equipment. Georgia votes on touchscreens that print a paper ballot with a QR code the scanner reads, and election activists have attacked that system since 2020. The letter asks Washington to outlaw equipment the federal commission certified.
The letter followed a resolution by three of the board’s five members, and the board is split over it. Chairman John Fervier, Gov. Kemp’s appointee, objected to inviting federal involvement, and two members say Mills exceeded his authority. DHS Secretary Mullin had earlier asked Blanche to declare QR-encoding machines unlawful nationally.
Who benefited
Federal officials who want a legal basis to act against Georgia’s voting system now have a request from a state body to cite. The activists who have sought to discredit the machines since 2020 also gain, five weeks before the election.
Who wanted something
Mills and the board’s three-member majority asked for the federal ban, and DHS Secretary Mullin had made the same request to the attorney general himself. The letter gives a federal intervention the appearance of state consent.
Who lost out
Georgia’s county election officials and the secretary of state must run the election on machines their own state board has asked Washington to outlaw. Voters are being told, weeks before the vote, that the machines counting their ballots are illegal.
Why it matters
A state board is inviting the federal government to disable the equipment that will count Georgia’s votes, five weeks before an election, over the objection of its own chairman. The Fulton County seizure was the federal government reaching into a state’s ballots. This is a state body asking it in.
Sources Georgia State Election Board (letter, hosted by Democracy Docket) (primary)Democracy DocketVotebeat