Glitchy voting machines in South Carolina spur new investment

South Carolina election officials have announced that the state will move forward with plans to replace the state’s nearly 13,000 electronic voting machines in time for the next presidential election in 2020. This follows complaints from voters that the aging election equipment changed their ballots or simply broke down, causing long wait times at the polls.

The State Election Commission is requesting $60 million from South Carolina lawmakers to swap out the existing equipment. The state is interested in machines that can produce paper ballots, as South Carolina is one of five states that uses machines that are exclusively electronic and do not produce paper backups. Currently, the state uses the iVotronic voting machine from Election Systems and Software, a leading producer of voting equipment.

Replacing the current stockpile of voting machines will be a costly and time-consuming process. The state was awarded about $6 million earlier this year from the US Elections Assistance Commission, and plans to use about 90% of that sum for new equipment.

Source: StateScoop