During what is likely to be another contentious presidential election in Pennsylvania, you may hear contradictory, confusing, or downright false claims about voting machines. Politicians in the past few elections have promoted fabricated claims about how they work or taken advantage of routine problems to cast doubt on their security and accuracy.

In Pennsylvania, all voting machines produce paper ballots that can be audited. This allows election officials to verify the accuracy of the outcome long after voting has concluded. These systems are tested twice, once at the federal and once at the state level, before going into service. Before each election, each machine that will be used is tested again to ensure it works properly.

Despite these security measures, politicians have seized on human error or completely invented information to cast doubt on election results. In November 2020, former President Donald Trump amplified false claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines switched 221,000 votes from himself to Joe Biden in Pennsylvania. He made numerous such claims as part of a larger, concerted effort to overturn the results of the presidential election.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Spotlight PA and Votebeat spoke with state officials about the status of Pennsylvania's voting machines, how the devices are certified, and how counties select them.