New York Board of Elections expected to vote on the use of highly controversial ExpressVoteXL voting machines | Rebecca C. Lewis and Shantel Destra/City & State New York
Ahead of the Board of Elections vote on authorizing the use of controversial touch-screen voting machines called ExpressVoteXL, various groups, including good government organizations, election advocates, and security experts, are urging commissioners not to approve them. The opposition stems from concerns about cyber vulnerabilities, the encoding of voter selections into barcodes and the high cost without proven benefits. Experts have questioned the sufficiency of thermal paper used by the machines and raised technical arguments against them. Some groups have shared letters and evidence to support their concerns, while others argue that paper ballots marked by voters are the gold standard for election security. The opposition to the machines is not new, with previous efforts to ban them through legislation failing. Read Article