NAACP asks judge to ban the kind of voting machines used in Mecklenburg County
Citing health and security concerns, North Carolina’s NAACP asked a Wake County judge Wednesday to block the use of touch screen voting machines in Mecklenburg and other counties.
The move came three months after the group filed suit against the State Board of Elections and several county boards.
Earlier this month the state attorney general’s office asked a judge to dismiss the suit.
The NAACP argues that new, touch screen voting machines risk exposing voters to COVID-19. It also said the ExpressVote machines are “insecure, unreliable, and unverifiable” and threaten “the integrity of North Carolina’s elections.”
Wednesday’s request for an injunction said the machines create “unique and substantial risks to the lives and health of voters” because each screen will be touched frequently.
The two dozen or so counties using the machines, it said, “are forcing voters to choose between their right to vote, their health and potentially their lives.”
“You shouldn’t have to put your life and health on the line in order to exercise your right to vote,” Courtney Hostetler, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, told the Observer Wednesday.
She said counties could switch to paper ballots or buy other machines that don’t rely on a touch screen. She said counties could use the same tabulating machines they use now to count paper as opposed to ExpressVote ballots.
Mecklenburg and several other counties adopted the machines in response to a 2013 state law requiring paper ballots in an effort to maintain elections security and stop potential hacking.
The machines are similar to those used in the county since 2006. But after using a touch screen to make their choices, voters pull out a paper copy of their ballot and give it to a poll worker who inserts it into a tabulator. County and state officials have said the machines are secure.
In an affidavit with the motion to dismiss the lawsuit, state board of elections Director Karen Brinson Bell said she’s heard of no problems with the machines in 2019 local elections or the 2020 statewide primaries.
She said elections officials have been given protocols for dealing with COVID-19, including frequent cleaning of machines and asking voters and poll workers to wear masks and social distance.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 5:28 PM with the headline "NAACP asks judge to ban the kind of voting machines used in Mecklenburg County."
