Charlottesville resident Paul Jacob has been rocking the vote since he was 18. He’s been voting for nearly 60 years now and he’s seen quite a few changes. “From marking X’s, to punching holes,” said Jacob. “To the computers.” At Tuesday’s election, he’ll see one more. The city registrars office is taking people back to the future when it comes to voting. Touch screens are now a thing of the past and paper is back in style. One reason for the change is because of problems with voting machines in previous years. Another reason is computer hacking. Hacks have occurred across the United States, including Washington, D.C. To prevent that, Rick Sincere from the Electoral Board says the Commonwealth is steering away from computer voting statewide.
“The Virginia General Assembly, back in 2007, wrote a law that said that from that point forward, we couldn’t replace electronic voting machines with other electronic voting machines,” said Sincere. “They want the entire state to go a paper based system.”
Sincere says voting systems have a lifespan of ten to 15 years, and at 12 years, their system was due for an upgrade.
Full Article: Virginia Moves Back to Paper Ballots for the Election.