An 8-month-old lawsuit challenging the legality of Arkansas' ballot-counting machines was thrown out of court on Monday after the plaintiff's attorney said he could not show that the system has ever misrepresented a vote.
At issue was whether the bar code-based system allows voters "To verify in a private and independent manner the votes selected by the voter on the ballot before the ballot is cast" as described in Arkansas Code 7-5-504, which sets the standards for machine operations under the state Election Code.
Dismissing the lawsuit, Circuit Judge Tim Fox ruled that the system does provide that verification opportunity as required by law because voters are given printed ballots to cast once they've selected their choices from the computer system.
Generally, Arkansas voters mark their ballots through a computer screen, which then prints out paper ballots showing voters' selections expressed both in writing and through a bar code.
An unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. House, Reynolds sued Republican Secretary of State John Thurston and the State Board of Election Commissioners, along with the ExpressVote machines' maker Election Systems and Software LLC of Nebraska, claiming that the system's reliance on bar codes means that voters cannot independently verify whether their ballot reflects their intentions.
Fox's ruling came after Reynolds' attorney Clint Lancaster had presented only his first witness, Daniel Shults, director of the State Board of Election Commissioners, who described how voters cast ballots.
Lancaster's suit only addresses what happens with ballots between the time when they are printed from the voting machine until they are cast, which is when the ballot is entered into the tabulator, the judge said.
https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/sep/12/pulaski-county-circuit-judge-tosses-out-lawsuit/
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