The Georgia Department of Revenue called a do-over vote for a new state license plate, citing confusion about whether the phrase In God We Trust will be part of the design.
At a news conference Friday originally planned to unveil the new plate design, Revenue Commissioner Doug MacGinnitie instead announced that online voting will start over next week.
"We want people to understand exactly what they will see on the license plate," MacGinnitie said, citing misunderstanding over whether "In God We Trust" stickers at the bottom of the three voter-selected finalists were an inherent part of the design.
The move followed an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report Friday that some church groups, atheists and others were confused. Three of the eight semifinalists offered in the first vote featured In God We Trust where the motorist's county ordinarily appears.
Many believed that all standard plates would have the phrase if one of those tags was selected. In fact, the designs simply showed what the plate would look like with the optional $1 IGWT sticker that is already available.
The three semifinalists bearing IGWT won the first online vote, in which more than 400,000 votes were cast, and one was going to be announced Friday as the winner.
The confusion began in May when Gov. Nathan Deal announced a contest to design the new plate. A template was provided that featured a space for each artist to either put a county name or In God We Trust. More than 500 people submitted entries and eight were chosen as semifinalists by art and design professors.
When voting opened to the public, the state left the IGWT phrase on three and it was not made clear that it only depicted the optional sticker. On websites, supporters of IGWT urged followers to flood the vote and to cast multiple ballots. Opponents of including the phrase did the same.
MacGinnitie said confusion might have skewed the results. The department will reopen voting on the original eight semifinalists next week for a three-week balloting period. When the department's website is updated, none of the designs will feature the phrase or a county name.
"In an abundance of caution and to make sure everyone thinks it’s a fair process, we wanted to reopen the voting," MacGinnitie said.
MacGinnittie said the department is doing all it can to try and limit people to one vote but acknowledged it is a technical challenge.
State law says plates must be able to last at least five years. It's been at seven years since new plates were created. The Department of Revenue said it has consulted with state law enforcement officials who are concerned older plates are deteriorating, making them more difficult to read.
"There are approximately 2 million-plus existing license plates which have been in service for more than seven years and some license plates have been in service for 14 years," Revenue tax policy analyst Timothy Mitchell wrote to Krista Brewer, an Atlanta resident who had questioned the IGWT label on the finalists' design in a letter to MacGinnitie.
"I object to those even being offered as choices and certainly hope one of those is not the winner," Brewer wrote. "We have a strong principle of separation of church and state that stems from our Constitution. It would be inappropriate to have that phrase on our state tags."
Mitchell, replying for MacGinnitie, explained the IGWT sticker and said a new manufacturing process will make these plates cheaper to produce and more convenient to acquire. Motorists will only receive the new tag when their current plate becomes more than five years old, Mitchell said.
Brewer said she is pleased with the decision to have a re-vote, although she added on Twitter: "Guess I'll just trust God that they don't screw up the next round of voting for the new GA tags."
But Scott Madigan of Johns Creek was disappointed that In God We Trust turned out not to be a permanent feature.
"The three top vote-getters were the three designs that had IGWT on them," he said. "I am not religious but respect that our country was founded on religious principles, that religion is a benefit to our society and that the majority of Americans/Georgians feel this way. The voters want IGWT on our state license plate, period."
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