Arkansas’s Voting Machines to Lose Certification
Mar 25, 2025
President Trump signed an executive order titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections” at the White House on March 25, 2025. Arkansas1st.com can now verify that Trump is directing the Election Assistance Commission to change certification standards for voting machines.
Currently machines that produce a ballot in which the voter’s selections are encoded in bar code or quick response code can be used. However, the EAC has 180 days to come up with new standards and such QR or bar codes will not be permitted.
Arkansas currently has only one approved voting machine. The state uses the ExpressVote ballot marking device and the DS200 tabulator. The ExpressVote produces bar codes that voters cannot verify. Those bar codes contain the voter’s selections, and it is those bar codes the tabulator is reading.
These are the exact types of machines that are targeted by Trump’s order. Now, under this executive order, not a single ballot marking device will be capable of certification as currently configured except for the handicapped.
This is good news for Arkansans who have long been unhappy with barcodes they cannot read. The American Voter Integrity Initiative has pushed for an end to the use of voting machines for three years. This includes lawsuits, ballot initiatives, and advocacy. AVII has been active in Wisconsin, Arizona, Arkansas, and Georgia carrying the message that barcodes are untrustworthy and likely violate the Help America Vote Act because they do not permit a voter to verify his or her votes before casting the ballot.
AVII created legislation in the 2023 session of the State General Assembly that would have effectuated these changes for Arkansas but the legislation was blocked by Senator Kim Hammer who believes that the bar codes are harmless. Additionally, Governor Sarah Sanders admitted recently that President Trump has repeatedly called for her to implement the changes called for by the executive order. Sanders stated that she was “working on it.” However, by working on it, she could only mean working to stop it from coming to fruition. There is no explanation from the Governor as to why she has not whipped the Republican super majority in the house and senate to do what Trump is now forcing the States to do.
One person who is excited about the executive order is none other than one of Sanders’s appointees.
Current Secretary of State Cole Jester took to X to laud Trump’s order and getting the states and the federal government on the same page. However, Jester did not specify what his office plans to do about the soon-to-be decertified voting machines.
May we suggest hand marked paper ballots?
Attorney. America First. Sued Hunter Biden for child support. Represented President Trump in the 2020 Wisconsin election challenge. Former attorney for the Wisconsin Special Counsel. An official “Tough Cookie” per President Trump.
Hallelujah!!! 👏 🙌
Funny how Jester is acting like he’s been in favor of paper ballots all along.
Thank the Lord….a President with “Common Sense”.
Good job Clint and AVII, I guess it’s true…the persistent bird gets the worm 🙂 I hope you guys grab the “winning baton” from Trump; we need some winning in Arkansas.
May we suggest hand marked and hand counted paper ballot?
The voting system is broken. The Secretary of State is supposed to be in charge of Arkansas elections. However, our Secretary of State can not review the software the voting machines use. He has no idea what nefarious loops exist in the software and or what triggers those loops. He does not even have a scanner to read the bar codes on the ballots. That is all handled in Omaha. The system is broken and needs to be hauled to the dump. And the big lie that is being broadcast by the Arkansas establishment is that it is more expensive to vote with paper ballots. The Arkansas establishment in the legislature has tried to make it more expensive for counties switching to paper ballots by pulling state funding for their elections. That does not mean that paper ballots are more expensive. It means the establishment is a bunch of liars.
And it’ll become exponentially worse if Kim Hammer becomes our SOS.
Looks like Arkansas history isn’t a popular subject. Arkansas elections were massively corrupt for decades, all done on paper with a pencil. History, people!