This Super Tuesday, voters in the 14 states holding primaries will encounter a range of voting methods and polling equipment. Verified Voting maintains a comprehensive database of voting systems being used across the United States (see the Verifier) and is observing a number of trends across Super Tuesday states, including:
- California – Los Angeles County is rolling out Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP), their in-house designed and publicly-owned ballot marking device (BMD) for all voters
- North Carolina – More than half of North Carolinians are voting with new equipment, and seven counties are using BMDs for all voters. Verified Voting opposes the use of commercially-available BMDs for all voters because research suggests few voters actually check the paper outputs with enough attention to catch errors
- Tennessee – 70% of registered voters will vote on unverifiable direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines; a few counties are using hand-marked paper ballots or BMDs
- Texas – 36% of registered voters are voting on unverifiable DREs, and about half of all Texans will be using new voting equipment
“Voting systems need proper planning, testing and training, especially when a new type of equipment is being introduced. There also needs to be a way to monitor, detect, respond and recover from technological failures – no matter the cause – and to ensure that election officials have the proper resources and tools to run elections,” said Marian K. Schneider, president of Verified Voting. “Voters should also remember that the only way to make sure their vote doesn’t count is if they don’t vote.”
Verified Voting advocates for evidence-based elections where the majority of voters mark paper ballots by hand (supplemented with ballot marking devices for those who need to use them), the voter verifies the ballot before casting, there is a strong chain of custody of the ballots, and robust post-election audits such as risk-limiting audits (RLAs) are conducted.
For additional media inquiries, please contact aurora@newheightscommunications.com
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