La. officials dispute report on overseas voting

Published Jul 26, 2012 at 3:00 pm (Updated Jul 26, 2012)

State officials are disputing a national report released Wednesday that called Louisiana's programs for overseas and military voters 'inadequate' and gives it among the lowest marks in the country. Conducted by the Verified Voting Foundation, the Rutgers Law School Constitutional Litigation Clinic and Common Cause, the report says hackers could pose a problem for Louisiana because it lets overseas voters return their ballots by fax and does not provide backup paper ballots at polling places, opening the system up to cyberattacks. "They're not going to be happy with anything we do because their agenda is paper ballots," first assistant secretary of state Kyle Ardoin tells The (Lafayette) Advertiser. "They don't know our system and they don't want to know our system because we don't use paper ballots." Ardoin says he finds the report interesting considering the Pew Center of the States "recognized us as a model state for integrity of elections. We'll look at best practices suggested in both reports." Ardoin says Louisiana's electronic voting machines record and store every vote that is cast and paper records kept at polls are used to verify the counts. State Elections Commissioner Angie Rogers adds she also finds the report's complaints interesting because "the Help America Vote Act was enacted in 2002 to get away from paper ballots." Read about the report and access it in its entirety in a story from Daily Report here; and the full story on the officials reaction here.