Lawsuit settlement leads to Pennsylvania agreeing to publicly report voting machine problems

HARRISBURG (KDKA) – As the presidential election looms closer, a change in how voting is monitored in the Keystone State will be in effect. 

The new decision says that Pennsylvania will soon be tracking any malfunctions with voting machines. 

It comes on the heels of a 2019 lawsuit brought by several election security groups and this decision is the settlement of that suit. 

In the lawsuit, the election security groups said that new Express Vote XL voting machines acquired by the state and used in three counties were flawed. 

They alleged the machines’ access panels were insecure and frequently unlocked. They also alleged that the machines required poll workers to enter voting booths to help a voter who they said made a mistake. Lastly, they alleged the machine stored ballots in chronological order, thus compromising their secrecy. 

As part of the settlement reached last week, the Pa. Secretary of State said it will instruct all counties using the machines, that’s Cumberland, Northampton, and Philadelphia counties, to upgrade the latest software version to address some of these issues and the big part of the settlement is this – the counties must report any malfunctions to the state to give the public full transparency. 

It’s viewed as a win for democracy and the hope is that this will allow the public to better monitor elections and the updates will be ready by November.