The Trump administration requests access to the voting machines worried the electoral managers: NPR
An official of the Ministry of Justice recently asked for certain Missouri counties to hand over their voting machines in 2020. The counties refused, drawing attention to the debate on election security.
Scott Detrow, host:
President Trump clearly said he was not a fan of voting machines, and now his administration takes measures that disturb many electoral officials. The voting correspondent NPR, the correspondent of NPR Miles Parks. Hi, miles.
Miles Parks, byline: Hey, Scott.
Detrow: I’m confused here. I thought that most of the country’s votes on paper ballots rather than on machines. How common is it to start?
Parks: That’s right. Thus, more than 98% of Americans in 2024 voted on paper ballots.
Detrow: approx.
Parks: But when we talk about voting machines, it can mean a few different things. In some cases, to which people refer to when they say that these are things called voting marking devices. These are machines where people use a touch screen, then it prints a paper ballot that indicates their answers. They can ensure that it is less likely for human error, for example, when someone writes a scribble instead of coloring the small point.
Detow: Yeah.
Parks: In other cases, voting machines refer to how votes are tabuated. These are the scanners that electoral officials really use to count the ballots. Thus, voting machines can mean a few different things.
Detow: Yeah. So, Miles, the reason you are today is that the Trump administration has made movements recently linked to this voting equipment, to voting machines. Tell us about what’s going on.
Parks: Yes, so the most recent incident occurred last month in Missouri, where those responsible for the Ministry of Justice contacted local Missouri County clerks and in fact asked to inspect the voting equipment they used in 2020. There are very strict rules on this subject, so the clerks politely refused these requests. But we have seen similar requests to a Colorado consultant saying that they were working on behalf of the Trump administration, although the administration has moved away from these efforts. But electoral officials see these things and are quite panified at the moment, especially since President Trump has also teased an executive decree prohibiting voting machines. It is very difficult to know what it would really look like in practice, but it is clear that it does not trust these machines at all.
Detrow: Regarding the things he claims, is there any real for one of them?
Parks: There is none. And there has been – as we are still talking about – so many cases where evidence could have released since 2020, in the five years, right?
Detow: Yeah.
Parks: I mean, there have been judicial cases. For example, Fox News paid a manufacturer of voting machines nearly $ 800 million to adjust a defamation case after 2020. And then I always return to Georgia, where a large part of the machine skepticism is really centered …
Detrow: right.
Parks: … in 2020 because voters use these electronic marking devices for their paper ballots. But after the elections in 2020 – people still forget it – the republican secretary of state supervised an audit where they experienced a paper ballot, and that confirmed what the machine said.
Detrow: He said that. I remember these press conferences where he and his senior officials said it again and again. And yet, this idea – this false idea grew up and still holds our policy of years later. What do you think of how civil servants say no, here is the clear answer. Isn’t people trust them? Like, what’s going on here?
Parks: It’s a good question. I think it is very difficult to cut the noise in a very stilted political moment. But I will also note that disinformation on voting machines is also very effective because the machines themselves are very complicated. I spoke to Jennifer Morrell, who is a former electoral official of Colorado in Utah.
Jennifer Morrell: You know, you heard people say that you cannot trust the black box. I understand that, right? When you cannot see it and you do not understand how it is used or verified or verified, I can understand skepticism.
Detrow: Does she, or quite simply, has another person to whom you have spoken, does she make sense, what should he happen to start rebuilding this confidence?
Parks: I think it is by extreme transparency. You know, no one should trust that voting machines work. There must be processes in place involving the paper ballots that people mark where you can go back and audit the results to make sure they work. And more and more states, Morrell told me, implementing this type of rigorous audits.
Detrow: I guess Miles, one last thing I wonder is President Trump – he is president of the United States. He won the elections in 2024 with a decisive margin, and yet he is still so focused on this 2020 election that he lost and said he has not lost. A thought of you or the world that you cover on the reason why this fixation remains?
Parks: I mean, it is difficult to psychoanalyze the president. I will also note, however, that the fixation has not only started with 2020, right? I mean, he won in 2016 and also disseminated false information on the vote of non-citizens during this election. So I would say that it is clearly resolved on problems with the electoral system for a long time. But I think that people who study those responsible for the vote and the elections I spoke to are really ahead of a large part of these things on how this could have an impact on 2026 and 2028. And I think that anyone who is in doubt of an electoral system, the type of subtext of this is that the electoral system must change. The fear is therefore that it is essentially a way for President Trump or President Trump’s allies to change the system in a way that could benefit them.
Detow: this is the voting correspondent NPR, Miles Parks. Thank you so much.
Parks: Thank you, Scott.
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