Voting has always come under scrutiny, and trying to get the most accurate count possible has always been the goal of those in charge of counting the ballots.

So when you’re working on securing what is believed to be the best and most accurate of voting machines, the last thing you need is a government shutdown standing in your way. In fact, Montco was way ahead of the game, with a good portion of the state scrambling after a federal court agreement to update voting machines within the next two years was passed, the county voted to go ahead and upgrade its machines this year.  

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Pennsylvania committed, in federal court, to updating all its voting machines by 2020, but after the county voted to replace older machines with the new ones, we were expecting to be in compliance before the 2019 primary.

Now, the partial federal government shutdown has left that plan in limbo — the voting machines the county wants to use have not received final federal certification. If the federal government doesn’t reopen soon, those machines won’t be in place for the primary, writes Jonathan Lai for philly.com. 

“It’s stunning,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean, the Democrat representing the 4th District. While federal workers and their families are hurt the most, she said, the shutdown has begun to bite those who need federal services: “And now we’re rippling out to the notion of the protection of our vote? It’s really staggering.”

To read the rest of the philly.com story click here. 

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