The voting machines in 43 states are at least a decade old and in danger of malfunctioning

Voting machines in Toledo, Ohio during the 2008 election.

(Image credit: J.D. Pooley/Getty Images)

published 15 September 2015

The technology voters will use in more than 80 percent of states to cast their ballots this coming Election Day is wildly outmoded, according to a new report from New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice.

The center's researchers "surveyed more than 100 specialists familiar with voting technology, including voting machine vendors, independent technology experts, and election officials in all 50 states" to find that in 43 out of 50 states, the voting machines in use are at least 10 years old. This places the majority of them close to or even past their expected lifetime, and it also means they're running on software and security measures that are long out of date. Beyond software concerns, many machines still in use also require repairs using parts that are no longer manufactured.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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