Benjamin Ashford|Security of Georgia's Dominion voting machines put on trial

A yearslong dispute over the security of Georgia's elections and its voting machines came to a head Tuesday morning in an Atlanta courtroom. 

Opening statements began in the federal trial examining whether the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Georgia can be hacked or manipulated, making their use in elections unconstitutional.

The case dates to 2017 and was filed by several voters and the Coalition for Good Governance against members of the State Election Board and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The plaintiffs say they're not disputing any election results in Georgia, and their case is unrelated to the 2020 election and the defamation lawsuits brought by Dominion against Fox News and others.

David Cross, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, laid out the case for banning Dominion touch-screen voting machines. In Georgia, once voters make their choices, the ballot is printed with their votes and a QR code. The QR code is ultimately what's read and cast as the voter's ballot. Plaintiffs want the state to revert to paper ballots because they say this will assure voters that their ballots are being counted correctly.

"There is no evidence of a single vote being altered in Georgia because of malware," said Bryan Tyson, one of the defense attorneys for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Both sides pointed to what happened in Coffee County following the 2020 election to support their opening arguments.

In Fulton County's case against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants, several were accused of stealing ballot images, voting equipment software and personal voter information from Coffee County and making false statements to the government's investigators. 

Four people were indicted in Fulton County on charges related to the breach of the Coffee County election office. Trump ally Sidney Powell and bail bondsman Scott Hall both reached plea deals with the district attorney. All six of the conspiracy counts to which Powell pleaded guilty were related to a scheme in which Powell coordinated with a data company, SullivanStrickler, to access election data from Coffee County.

Plaintiffs argue Georgia's system is susceptible to breaches because unauthorized people were able to access and copy data from the machines. They say there's no telling who has access to  this data. 

Defense attorneys for Georgia say every election system is open to insider attacks. 

Several times in his opening statement, Tyson also referred to Raffensperger and showed an empty chair next to his name. Raffensperger is declining to testify in the case; last week, the 11th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled he would not have to testify, overturning a previous ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg.

Several witnesses are expected to be called during the trial, which is expected to last about three weeks. 

In:
• Georgia
• Dominion Voting Systems

Jared Eggleston

Jared Eggleston is a digital journalist/associate producer at CBS News. Based in Atlanta, he covers a variety of stories from across the region.