No, a poll worker's pen won't throw out your Georgia ballot

With early voting already underway across Georgia for the Nov. 3 general election, a rumor is spreading that if a poll worker makes any mark on your ballot, the ballot gets thrown out. Fayette County, that one isn't true. The Associated Press and Snopes have both checked the claim, and both found the same thing: a poll worker's pen does not throw your vote away.

Here is what actually happens to a ballot in Georgia, step by step.

Where the pen actually touches

When you check in at a Georgia polling place, a poll worker verifies who you are and writes your name in ink on a consecutively numbered paper roster called the list of voters. The rule has been in effect since July 19. The roster shows who received a ballot and in what order — not how anyone voted.

That is the ink that has people talking. It goes on the roster at the check-in table, not on your ballot. Joseph Kirk, Bartow County's elections director, said: "This is a very small part of the process, this does not affect your ballot, it doesn't make anything public record that's not already public record."

After check-in, you make your choices on a ballot-marking device, which prints a paper ballot with a machine-readable QR code. You review what it printed and feed it into the scanner to cast it. In the rare case a polling place cannot use that machine, voters fill out a hand-marked emergency paper ballot with a pen or pencil, and that ballot is scanned the same way.

What actually spoils a ballot

"Spoiled" is a word voters hear and worry about. Under Georgia election rules, a spoiled ballot is one that contains incorrect selections or is the wrong ballot, which is cancelled so the voter can try again. A poll worker's mark on the roster is not that.

Georgia law is specific about mistakes, too. An erasure, mutilation, or defect on a paper ballot voids the vote for that one candidate or question only; it does not touch the choices you marked clearly on the rest of the ballot.

A mistake on your end is not a penalty, either. The Secretary of State's office tells voters that if you make a mistake, ask a poll worker for another ballot before you cast the first one. Spoiling and replacing a ballot is your option.

When a ballot can't be scanned

If a ballot is torn or damaged enough that the scanner cannot read it, the county election superintendent can order a duplication panel to make a true duplicate, so the voter's selections still get tabulated. The law requires every duplicate to be clearly labeled "duplicate," to show the polling place, and to carry a unique number linking it to the original — and the original is kept.

State Election Board rules add that tabulation happens in public and is done directly from the paper ballots, not from electronic copies.

If you vote by mail instead, the instructions are different: do not erase or mark through a choice. Mark the ballot and its envelope "Spoiled," return both, and request a replacement. Absentee ballots carry a name stub — not a number strip — and your identifying number belongs on the outside oath envelope, not on the area where your votes are marked.

The bottom line: if your ballot shows your choices and the scanner reads it, it counts. A poll worker's ink mark on the check-in roster does not strip your vote, and a ballot that genuinely cannot be scanned is duplicated so the selections still count — never simply tossed.

Early in-person voting for the November 3 general election runs October 13 through October 30. Fayette County's elections office is at 175 Johnson Avenue in Fayetteville — 770-305-5408 — open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The four advance-voting locations are the elections office, the Fayette County Library at 1821 Heritage Parkway in Fayetteville, M.T. Allen Memorial Library at 201 Willowbend Road in Peachtree City, and the Tyrone Community Room at 881 Senoia Road. Advance voting generally runs 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., with Sunday voting October 25 from noon to 4 p.m. at the elections office, the Fayette County Library, M.T. Allen Memorial Library, and the Tyrone Community Room.

If a mark on a ballot or anything else at the polls looks wrong, call the Georgia Secretary of State Elections Division at 404-656-2871 or the voter-fraud hotline at 877-725-9797.