Court asked to block voting machines

Effort seeks injunction against using ExpressVote XL in Norco, across state

Warning of immediate and irreparable harm to the election system, voting security advocates asked a Pennsylvania court to block the use of troubled voting machines in Northampton County and elsewhere in the 2020 elections.

Leading a group of Northampton County and Philadelphia voters in a lawsuit over the machines, the National Election Defense Coalition and

Citizens for Better Elections filed a motion Friday in Commonwealth Court seeking a preliminary injunction requiring the state to decertify the ExpressVote XL electronic voting system for the April primary and November general election.

Citing new information from voters who encountered difficulty using the machines last year and a vote of “no confidence” in the ExpressVote XL by Northampton County election commissioners, the advocates said there is “no way to repair voters' trust in the machines.”

“If voters do not trust the machines, they cannot trust the outcome of the election,” the advocates said. “If that is to happen, the entire state of democracy starts to crumble under the weight of suspicion, distrust and frustration.”

Pennsylvania Department of State spokeswoman Wanda Murren said the department does not comment on active litigation.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania officials are preparing to go to federal court next week for a hearing in a case where former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and Pennsylvania voters claim the ExpressVote XL machines violate a settlement in a lawsuit that alleged electronic voting machines violated voters' rights in the 2016 election.

Stein and four Pennsylvania voters have asked U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond to order state officials to decertify the ExpressVote XL machines.

The machines, used last year in Philadelphia and Northampton counties, and purchased but

not used in Cumberland County, have been the subject of scrutiny by election security watchdogs since before the 2019 election. They allege a vulnerability to hacking and cite the inability of voters to easily verify that their votes have been logged among other concerns as reasons to reject the machines.

During the November municipal election, voters and poll workers in Northampton County reported trouble using the machines. The machines’ failure to record votes for a judicial candidate resulted in a manual recount of the election results. Officials for Election Systems & Software, which sells the ExpressVote system, cited human error in preparing the machines.

Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure said Monday that although the state has the burden of responding to the injunction request, he’s confident the machines will remain available to use in the 2020 elections. He attributed the plaintiffs’ distrust in the systems, which were certified by the federal and state governments, to a fear of the unknown.

“I understand they’re afraid, but the fact is that there is no empirical evidence that should lead one to that fear,” he said.

A preliminary injunction is a temporary court order put in place while a court undertakes a more extensive review of evidence. To win one, plaintiffs must show they face irreversible harm, that the harm outweighs the burden placed on the other parties and that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail in a final decision.

Lesley Grossberg, who represents the plaintiffs in the Commonwealth Court case, said the preliminary injunction motion includes more detailed statements from the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and other voters who experienced difficulty voting. Grossberg said that while Election Day problems in Northampton County were already well documented, the injunction motion, which includes more than 750 pages of statements and evidence, provides greater detail about problems voters encountered at Philadelphia polls.

“We were able to put a lot more color in this motion about what happened to people at their polling place when they went to use these machines,” Grossberg said.

Commonwealth Court has not set a schedule for briefs and a hearing in the case.