Fresh doubts are being raised over the 2024 US election after reports alleged that a federally certified testing lab approved quiet changes to voting machines ahead of the vote.Watchdogs claim the changes were not properly tested or announced. Kamala Harrislost that election to Donald Trump, but critics are questioning whether machine updates may have influenced the outcome, according to a report by the Daily Boulder.At the centre of the controversy is Pro V&V, an accredited voting system testing laboratory. The firm approved updates to ES&S voting machines, which are used in nearly half of US counties. However, Jack Cobb, the lab’s director, insisted that the updates were insignificant.“There really is no change of any significance,” Cobb told Newsweek via email. He explained that the changes involved replacing old printers, adjusting ballot bins and boxes, moving file storage locations, and adding mounting brackets to machines. This information, he said, is available on the Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) website.Concerns over transparency and testingBetween March and September 2024, Pro V&V signed off on four updates to the software and firmware of voting machines. According to SMART Elections, a nonpartisan watchdog, these updates impacted many voting machines across the country.Despite the scope, the updates were marked as “de minimis” by the EAC, meaning they were considered minor and did not require further public testing. SMART Elections warned that this designation raises risks, claiming it could allow malware or vulnerabilities to enter systems without being detected.“These weren’t minor tweaks,” stated the Dissent in Bloom Substack. “They touched ballot scanners, modified audit files, and even affected machines flagged by CISA. But by calling them ‘de minimis’, they avoided full testing, public scrutiny, and transparency.”Asked about such claims, Cobb told Newsweek, “Most of these articles are completely made up.”Lawsuit demands full recountIn response to the controversy, SMART Legislation, the legal arm of SMART Elections, has filed a lawsuit in Rockland County, New York, demanding a full hand recount of the 2024 presidential and US Senate races. A court hearing has been scheduled for 22 September.What happened to the company website?After the election, observers noted that Pro V&V’s website became nearly non-functional. “The website collapsed into a hollow shell” shortly after the 2024 vote, said Dissent in Bloom. As of June 2025, it remains a basic single page.Cobb responded that the site was only down for a few days in February and has been “running ever since.”Trust in the system eroding?SMART Elections wrote on its Substack:“Why would we trust a company that has let its website disintegrate publicly for over six months, to test complex electronic equipment that we rely on to determine who controls the treasury, the military and the policy of our entire nation?We should not. We do not. We do not trust these voting machines. We do not trust the labs that test them.”The group is calling for the entire system to be replaced with a transparent, verifiable model that can publicly prove the security of every vote.
