NEW YORK POLITICS
New York State BOE certifies controversial digital voting system
By Tim Balk
New York Daily News
Published: Aug 02, 2023 at 6:02 pm
The New York State Board of Elections on Wednesday approved the use of a controversial touchscreen election voting system, allowing municipalities the option to use the ExpressVote XL machine.
The certification vote, at the end of several hours of dialogue between the Board of Elections’ bipartisan panel of commissioners, was 3 to 1.
Ahead of the vote, critics warned that the little-used system could contribute to long lines and carry security risks during election contests. It was one of four systems up for a vote before the state Elections Board on Wednesday, but by far the most controversial.
Before the certification vote, the New York City Board of Elections said it did not plan to make any immediate alterations to its voting system regardless of the outcome. The city Elections Board said it would consider new technology certified by the state when the need arises, and in light of its own reviews.
“There will be no alteration to voting equipment prior to the 2024 presidential race,” said Vincent Ignizio, a spokesman for the city Elections Board.
The ExpressVote XL, from the Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software company, allows voters to cast ballots on a 32-inch touchscreen. The system distills vote selections into a bar code.
An independent review of the ExpressVote XL prepared for the state Elections Board by a consulting firm found that the system had 430 potential vulnerabilities. The analysis said those 430 weak spots — set aside from another 42,800 possible vulnerabilities that were found to be “not exploitable” — would be challenging to exploit, but that they could potentially be gamed by people with “extensive knowledge of the system.
“However, it remains that the risk associated with these issues is being mitigated through controls present on the devices,” said the report.
ExpressVote XL machines also were said to count some votes in Pennsylvania in 2019, Reuters reported.
The system is not without supporters, including former Gov. David Paterson. In a Daily News opinion piece last year, he said the time had come for New York to update its voting infrastructure to improve accessibility.
“Modern voting technology allows all to access the polling booth with privacy and with dignity, enabling their voice to be heard,” wrote Paterson, a Democrat who is legally blind.
Tom Burt, chief executive of Election Systems & Software, has argued that opposition to modern voting systems is rooted in conspiracies about election integrity fanned in the aftermath of President Biden’s 2020 election win.
“We believe the public has a right to know and understand the technology before they use it to vote,” Burt said in a June opinion piece in the Daily News. “That’s why our company has conducted dozens of public demonstrations of our latest offering.”
“In fact, we’ll gladly conduct one for Mr. Ruffalo,” he added.
Election Systems & Software did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, nor did a spokeswoman for Ruffalo.
Much of the public response to the system during the state certification response was sharply negative and centered on paper ballots’ status as the gold standard for elections.
“The ExpressVote XL is not safe, and ES&S cannot be trusted in their claims that it is safe,” Lulu Friesdat, co-founder of the advocacy group SMART Elections, said in Wednesday letter to the state Elections Board.
Douglas Kellner, one of four commissioners at the state Elections Board, said the board had received some 3,000 messages in opposition to the system’s potential certification. Kellner, a Democrat, was the only commissioner to vote against certifying the system.
“I’m disappointed,” Kellner said by phone after the vote. “It’s really now up to the county elections commissioners which of the four certified systems they will deploy.”