Ever since the 2020 election, Louisiana has come
under fire for having outdated voting machines. State
officials are searching for a way to modernize these
machines and keep Louisiana on par with the rest of
the country.
According to AP News, the problem with the machines that Louisiana currently use when holding
elections is that there is no paper record made of each
vote cast.
This lack of a paper trail can cause issues when there
is a need for a recount of an election. Occasionally,
elections have to be recounted when a vote is too
close to call or there are allegations of voter fraud,
according to the Louisiana Secretary of State.
Louisiana officials know this is a problem that needs
to be fixed. After the last presidential election, the
state legislature passed a law requiring that each voting machine leave behind a paper record of each vote,
according to the National Public Radio.
The problem with getting these machines is deciding
which company will provide them.
Louisiana was close in both 2018 and 2021 to replacing these machines, but attempts were shelved
after allegations of favoritism for the state’s current
vendor—Dominion.
This past June, election officials in the state of Louisiana got to have a hands-on experience with the
different types of voting machines. According to the
Advocate, nine different vendors attended the conference, looking to persuade the officials to choose their
machines.
Each one of these vendors kept in accordance with a
new Louisiana voting law that requires a paper ballot
be printed with each vote cast.
Lawmakers and elected officials were excited to see
the opportunity of updating the system and are ready
for Louisiana to take this step forward.
David Ditch, clerk of court for Iberia Parish said,
“Everybody — every political persuasion and everybody that comes into my office says the same thing,
‘We love the way we vote now. We just wish we had
something to prove it in the end.’”
With all of the voting allegations brought in after
the last presidential election, Louisiana officials are
hopeful to have 10,000 new machines in the state
before the next presidential election in 2024.