Elections Supervisor Jerry Holland is updating the voting machines Jacksonville voters will use next spring.

Holland said the current machines are beginning to experience a higher failure rate. The new ones will remedy that problem. They also will be even more secure, which is a continuing concern among voters.

Like the earlier models, the new ones will have numerous security features, Holland said.

Using the devices, called tabulators, is simple. You mark a ballot and insert it in the machine and the marked votes are recorded.

People with limited knowledge of the machines worry about “hacking.” But the machines never are connected to the internet and to interfere with the internal storage the perpetrator would have to act in front of a room full of employees and observers.

The former supervisor addressed the issue previously with Eye on Jacksonville.

There is no way to prevent cheating that is 100 percent effective. Marked paper ballots, which were used for decades, can be removed or replaced.

It is widely believed that Democrat Lyndon Johnson won his first Senate seat that way in 1948 and went on to become president.

Johnson’s victory resulted from 200 “patently fraudulent” ballots reported six days after the election from an area dominated by a political boss who backed Johnson. The added names were in alphabetical order and written with the same pen and handwriting, at the end of the list of voters. Some of those listed insisted they had not voted that day.

Eventually, paper ballots were replaced by mechanical voting machines. Those also were viewed with suspicion.

In 2000, punch cards were used in Florida. Stupid voters in some Democrat-majority counties punched holes in the wrong place. It probably didn’t change the outcome in a race George Bush won by only 537 votes, but it could have done so — and without cheating being a factor.

After that election, liberals pushed for new voting machines, and also made the ludicrous claim that the press had been biased — in favor of Bush.

Since then, the libs who were so concerned about cheating have pushed for mail voting, which increases the possibility of cheating significantly.

Many Americans still shake their heads in wonder that 81 million votes were attributed to a sick old man who campaigned from his basement in 2020 against an incumbent president.

In short, people will cheat to win political office. Constant vigilance is needed.