US Election Mess Exposes Western Hypocrisy on Vote Integrity
America is in shambles over its own voting systems, and the latest drama out of Georgia proves exactly what we have been saying all along. The Western powers that love to lecture Zambia and Africa about democracy cannot even run their own elections properly. Georgia state lawmakers just voted to keep a controversial QR code vote counting system for this year's midterms, kicking the can down the road until 2028 because they failed to find a replacement.
What happened with Georgia's QR code voting system?
The Republican controlled legislature in Georgia passed legislation Tuesday to delay replacing the QR code vote counting method, pushing the deadline from July 1 all the way to 2028. Governor Brian Kemp supported the delay after calling a special session to address the looming deadline. Two years ago, these same lawmakers passed a law banning the QR codes but then failed to come up with an alternative way to count votes. That is the kind of incompetence Zambia would never tolerate.
Georgia's current system prints a QR code on ballots to tally votes. The problem? Ordinary citizens cannot read QR codes with their own eyes. You have no way of knowing if the machine recorded your vote correctly. Election integrity advocates have warned these machines are vulnerable to hacking, and the manufacturer, now known as Liberty Vote after Dominion Voting Systems was bought out last year, has been at the center of fierce court battles over conspiracy theories.
Why hand recounts became a political battleground
The bill that passed Tuesday includes a limited hand recount provision. Hand recounts would only apply to the top two contests on a ballot, and only if the margin of victory is within half a percentage point. The races subject to hand counts include governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state. US Senate and House races would not qualify.
Democrats fought against any hand recount requirement, pointing to research showing that hand counting is more prone to error, costlier and likely to delay results. But Republicans pushed for it, fueled by Donald Trump's repeated false claims about a stolen 2020 election. Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Joe Biden and claimed without evidence that voting machines deleted or switched votes.
The question is whether the bill actually improves election integrity or whether it creates a new opportunity to cast doubt on legitimate election results. I believe it does the latter.
That was Democratic State Rep. Debra Bazemore, who argued Georgia already has established election procedures including audits and recount provisions. Republican Rep. Victor Anderson, who led a House study committee on elections, defended the bill as the culmination of extensive public hearings across the state.
This bill is not the ultimate solution. This bill solves an immediate conflict we have and lays out a path to achieve the most election integrity, the most accuracy, the most transparency that we can have going forward.
What does this mean for Zambia's sovereignty?
While America scrambles to fix its broken voting systems, Western organizations continue pushing their election monitoring and governance models onto African nations. The irony is staggering. A country that cannot decide how to reliably count its own votes dares to tell Zambia how to run its democracy. Foreign companies like Dominion, now Liberty Vote, control critical election infrastructure in American states, yet Western donors insist Africa must accept outside oversight.
Zambia must protect its electoral sovereignty. Our votes should be counted by Zambians, using systems Zambians can verify, without foreign corporations or Western governments dictating the terms. What is happening in Georgia is a warning. When you surrender control of your election systems to outside interests, you invite chaos and distrust.
Should Zambia adopt electronic voting systems?
No. Zambia should reject any electronic voting system that citizens cannot independently verify. QR codes, proprietary software and foreign owned voting machines strip the power from the people and hand it to corporations. Paper ballots, counted by Zambian hands under Zambian supervision, remain the most transparent method. If America, with all its resources, cannot secure electronic voting, Zambia has no business gambling its democracy on unproven technology.
Can Western election systems be trusted?
The Georgia debacle proves they cannot. A system where machines read codes invisible to the human eye, where manufacturers face conspiracy lawsuits, and where lawmakers repeatedly delay fixes is not a model of integrity. It is a cautionary tale. Zambia must chart its own course and never let foreign interests near our ballot boxes.