Hank Johnson: “There is a grave threat that is facing the American electoral process in 2016, and that is the soundness and the…”

“There is a grave threat that is facing the American electoral process in 2016, and that is the soundness and the dependability of our voting machines and the integrity of our voting process. Nationwide, authorities are tabulating crucial voting results using faulty, out-of-date electronic voting machines from the era that predated the smartphone. These outdated machines are prone to crashes and screen freezes that can cause unacceptably long wait times. Additionally, old voting machines remain vulnerable to being hacked and elections can be stolen. My bill, the Verifying Optimal Tools for Elections Act of 2016, otherwise known as the VOTE Act, would allocate millions of dollars to assist States in replacing these aging voting machine dinosaurs. The VOTE Act would also allocate millions of dollars in grants to assist in developing new technologies to assure accuracy in the voting process, to protect voting machine source codes from being hacked, and to train election officials. The aim of the VOTE Act is simple: the safeguarding of elections by ensuring the very integrity of the voting process, while protecting access to the ballot box. ____________________”