Three weeks after the Georgia Senate failed to pass a bill mandating hand-marked paper ballots in the November election, it has approved a House bill with some modifications that includes that requirement.

An amendment by Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, that was submitted on Friday, Jan. 27, includes some of the same elements as Senate Bill 568, which was killed on crossover day.

The amended House Bill 960 still requires hand-marked paper ballots in the general election of November 2026 and mandates a manual recount for some elections.

The Senate reduced the penalty for an ineligible voter from $10,000 to $100.

Election officials will need to keep pre-printed ballots at each polling place and must publish a voter turnout list by 11:59 p.m. on Election Day.

Sen. Kim Jackson, D-Stone Mountain, the Senate minority whip, said that pre-printed ballots will cause difficulties in DeKalb County.

"We have over 400 types of ballots," Jackson said. "This bill requires DeKalb County to stock all 432 types of ballots in every precinct and early voting location (without any funding for it, by the way). Thousands of pre-printed ballots sitting in someone's fellowship hall is not only a recipe for human error, but also a serious security risk, in my opinion."

The bill is expected to create a financial burden for local election officials. Joseph Kirk, president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registrars and Election Officials and the election supervisor for Bartow County, told The Center Square that he could not yet estimate how much additional ballot printing would cost.

"We're printing more ballots than we need for safety," Kirk said. "It's going to be an enormous amount of ballots."

Democrats in the Senate spoke out against the bill for over an hour before it passed on a party-line vote of 32-21.

Dolezal championed the bill, saying it is time for the state to adopt hand-marked paper ballots. He showed a map with states that use hand-marked ballots highlighted in green.

"All we're asking is for Georgians to be mindful of their environment and to cast their votes the way the majority of Americans are voting," Dolezal said.

The House will have to approve the amended House Bill 960 before it can be sent to Gov. Brian Kemp.

The bill has met opposition from the Georgia Association of Voter Registrars and Election Officials, The Center Square reported, due to the difficulty of successfully implementing it according to the timeline.

The association supports Senate Bill 214, which would delay the removal of QR codes mandated by Senate Bill 189. That bill passed the Senate and is currently in the House.

By NNP Chief Reporter Hong Sung-goo / Special Contributor to this publication NNP info@newsandpost.com