Monday, Jan. 27, 2020
The ballot box is where we'll come face to face with the 2020 election, starting with North Carolina's Super Tuesday primary in March. That election will mark the county-wide debut of new voting machines.
Voters will make their choices on touch-screen machines that churn out a paper ballot with their choices marked. That paper ballot is then fed into a tabulator that scans a bar code to record the vote.
A change in state law required the use of election systems with some form of a paper ballot. While Mecklenburg will continue to have a touch-screen machine in the process, other counties, such as Guilford, are using paper ballots that voters will mark by hand.
Mecklenburg elections director Michael Dickerson is confident in the machines' ability to withstand hacking - a concern that has hovered over elections since Russian attempts to hack America's elections infrastructure in 2016.
GUESTS
Michael Dickerson, director of elections, Mecklenburg County
Liz Howard, counsel, Brennan Center for Justice's Democracy Program; former deputy commission with Virginia's Department of Elections (@lizlhoward)