Touch-screen voting machines are now permitted across New York after the state Board of Elections voted to allow counties to purchase new systems last week. Now, voters can cast their ballot electronically, an update to traditional voter-marked paper ballots.
The updates have been met with backlash from some Republican counties in the state. On Monday, Chautauqua County GOP election officials announced that they would not be purchasing any of the touch-screen machines, citing they are updating 100 Dominion Optical Scan ImageCast machines the area purchased in 2008.
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In a 3-1 vote on Aug. 2, the New York State Board of Elections approved ExpressVote XL voting machines to be purchased and used as early as the 2024 elections. Board Co-Chairman Doug Kellner, a Democrat, was the only one who voted not to certify the machines, citing a lawsuit involving the machines that will occur before the final vote.
The electronic system is made by Election Systems & Software, the other large voting industry proponent besides Dominion. ExpressVote XL makes voters select their choices on a touch screen and underwent extensive testing by the board before it was approved for election usage.
Two amendments were pushed through to the original resolution. One modified a proposal from Kellner making Election Systems & Software acknowledge multiple source code anomalies, and the other pointed out that ExpressVote XL summary cards currently have to be audited by hand, urging a system to be implemented.
Others in opposition to the changes say paper ballots are still the most secure method of voting, which is the system New York counties and New York City currently operate on. Critics, such as Common Cause, a government watchdog group, claim the machines are a waste of taxpayer money and don't allow for users to check their votes as accurately as paper ballots.
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Jennifer Wilson, the deputy director of public information for the New York State Board of Elections, has pushed back on this opposition, claiming the machines are just as secure and will not create voter confusion.
“The voter’s choices are printed on the paper record by the machine, and the voter can then either review their choices behind a clear screen before having it scan and tabulate their ballot or they can have the machine eject their ballot to them for closer review, or to have that ballot scanned by another device,” Wilson said, per Spectrum News 1.