Judge dismisses federal lawsuit concerning Warrick County voting machines
EVANSVILLE – A federal lawsuit accusing Warrick County of using supposedly uncertified and vulnerable voting machines was dismissed late last month.
According to court records, Judge Richard L. Young threw out the case on jurisdictional grounds on Nov. 21. It named multiple Warrick County officials as defendants, including Clerk Patricia Perry and several members of the election board and county commissioners.
In a Monday news release, Commissioner President Terry Phillipe seemingly tied the suit to unfounded theories about lack of election integrity that have taken hold with segments of the population since the 2020 presidential election.
“Though we recognize that certain current events, misinformation and disinformation have generated concern about the safety and validity of elections, we hope this decision by the federal court instills confidence that elections in Warrick County are fair and accurate,” he said.
Two Chandler, Indiana residents filed the suit in September 2022. In the initial complaint filed in the Southern District of Indiana, the plaintiffs claimed officials had misled voters and put the integrity of the election at jeopardy by not using paper ballots and failing to “provide transparency regarding the voting systems” used by the county.
They claimed the vendor Warrick County users for voting machines, MicroVote, was unlawfully certified because Pro V&V, a testing laboratory that scrutinizes MicroVote, lacked "legal accreditation." The U.S. Election Assistance Commission lists both as certified and accredited.
According to the complaint, they gave officials a 32-page document titled “Election Vulnerabilities Warrick.” The complaint doesn’t go into details as to what all those supposed vulnerabilities are.
The plaintiffs asked officials if the voting machines were connected to the Internet. They also sought an injunction to prevent Warrick County from the “destruction/deletion of any and all election records post-2019” and pushed officials to produce “all paper ballots created by voting systems, mail-in ballots, tabulation tapes, USB final counts from precincts, and all other election records not specifically stated.”
The Warrick lawsuit was similar to other cases that have popped up around the U.S. in the last couple years. A federal lawsuit out of Michigan, also filed in September 2022, made claims akin to those in Warrick. It was dismissed in August.
According to the Michigan Attorney General’s office, it sought to decertify the state’s 2020 election results and “prevent the use of allegedly uncertified voting equipment in the November 2022 election.”
In the opinion dismissing the suit, Judge Paul L. Maloney called the allegations “misguided."
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Judge dismisses federal suit concerning Warrick County voting machines
