Voting machine replacement leads to Louisiana elections chief lash out on senator
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Alaina
- . March 7, 2021
- . Update: March 7, 2021 3:38 am
After some irregularities at the voting practice, secretary of the state Kyle Ardoin lashed out on the committee which was authorised to oversee Louisiana Senate’s elections on Friday. This was after the head of the committee helped to sink Ardoin’s voting machine replacement work which has essentially led to a feud between the party.
Ardoin went onto accuse his fellow Republican and senator Sharon Hewitt of having an irresponsible approach as it allegedly disparaged his voting machine search efforts that have effectively damaged the reputation of his agency which is responsible for running the elections.
To convey the same, Ardoin wrote a letter to Hewitt that said, “You participated in a politically motivated ruse and launched an unfounded assault on an agency that has the highest requirements for precision during early and election day voting in the state of Louisiana.”
It was two days after his company was asked to replace 10,000 voting machines across Louisiana. Hewitt showed strong criticism who received support from other Republicans too who volunteered to be possible bidders about the bid solicitation process. Hewitt had earlier released a letter where she questioned Ardoin for jettisoning the search. It was alleged that he rushed into the process too quickly and did not take public input for the same.
Ardoin did not give in to the allegations and instead went onto to accelerate the matter through his response on Friday. The disagreement within the party has led to dispute within the party and in future too, would lead to ripple across the legislative session. I don’t need an ivy-league study to tell me that the Secretary’s two failed attempts were neither,” Hewitt said while concluding the letter.
Ardoin has expressed his desires to eventually redo the voting machine replacement work, which is costly affairs summing up to $100 million. Hewitt has a slight edge being the leader of the Senate Republican and also shares the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee that is responsible to oversee the legislative practices of elections as well as Ardoin.
Even in public view, the voting machine replacement effort saw a lot of scrutiny. This system came after in the year 2018, there was a rise in demand for the change in voting mechanism amid the allegations of irregularities in the bid handling that drew attention to the handling of elections after the conclusion of the 2020 presidential race.
