Judge hears arguments in Jill Stein's voting machine lawsuit

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pennsylvania's top elections official spent hours in federal court Tuesday, defending the certification of voting machines being used by Philadelphia and two other Pennsylvania counties, including one where problems led to undercounted returns in a race in November.

The hearing in federal court could help determine how 17% of Pennsylvania’s registered voters cast ballots in November, when the state is expected to be one of the nation’s premier presidential battlegrounds.

It comes after a two-year push by Gov. Tom Wolf to get counties to switch to paper-based voting systems ahead of this year's presidential election, a move he frames as a crucial election security bulwark against hacking.

For part of her three-plus hours on the stand, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar sought to show that no element of a federal court agreement in 2018 specifically outlawed certification of the machine in question, the ExpressVote XL touchscreen system.

She also testified that certification of the ExpressVote XL touchscreen system had been well underway during talks to settle the lawsuit.

Information about the ExpressVote XL's certification process was both publicly available and provided to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, she testified.

The plaintiffs would “pretty much have to be living under a rock” not to know about it, Boockvar said.

During Tuesday's court hearing, a lawyer for the plaintiffs — former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and several supporters — said they had dropped their effort to see the ExpressVote XL decertified before Pennsylvania's April 28 primary.

Rather, they remained focused on seeing it decertified before November's general election.

The underlying lawsuit filed by Stein's group accused Pennsylvania of violating...