Voting machine companies under pressure over sanitization

The top U.S. voting machine manufacturers are being pushed to produce videos and information on how their products can be sanitized to enable Americans to safely vote in-person during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Six leading voting equipment manufacturers were sent a letter Thursday by nonprofit group Free Speech for People, which raised concerns that voting machines could become a “major disease vector” for spreading the coronavirus during upcoming primaries and the general election.

As a result, the group asked the manufacturers to produce videos detailing how to properly clean voting equipment and post them online, along with allowing third-party groups to examine whether the steps to clean the equipment were effective and safe.

“We make these requests because we are deeply concerned about the health risk that electronic voting machines pose to voters,” Free Speech for People wrote.

Companies have taken some steps forward: All six of the voting machine equipment vendors — including the three largest, Election Systems and Software, Hart InterCivic, and Dominion Voting Systems — have produced written guidelines around how to sanitize their products due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

But the nonprofit argued that these written steps are not enough, particularly in light of findings that the virus can survive on certain surfaces for days.

“We are concerned that effective sanitization of each voting machine may create delays, resulting in voters being forced to wait in line to vote, increasing the possibility of person-to-person transmission of the virus,” the group wrote.