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By MARC LEVY PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pennsylvania's top elections official is expected Tuesday to defend the certification of voting machines being used by Philadelphia and two other Pennsylvania counties, including one where problems led to undercounted returns in a race in November. The hearing in federal court could help determine how 17% of Pennsylvania’s registered voters cast ballots in the April 28 primary election, as well as in November, when the state is expected to be one of the nation’s premier presidential battlegrounds.It comes amid a push by Gov. Tom Wolf to get counties to switch to paper-based voting systems ahead of this year's presidential election, a move he frames as a crucial election security bulwark against hacking.Wolf's administration contends that the machine in question, the ExpressVote XL touchscreen system, complies with a federal court agreement it entered in 2018 to settle a lawsuit. In that lawsuit, Pennsylvania was accused of violating the constitutional rights of voters in 2016’s presidential election because its voting machines were susceptible to hacking and barriers to a recount were pervasive.But the plaintiffs, former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and several supporters, say certifying the ExpressVote XL violates the settlement agreement, in part because the machine does not meet the agreement’s requirement “that every Pennsylvania voter in 2020 uses a voter-verifiable paper ballot.”For one, the ExpressVote XL counts votes by counting machine-printed bar codes on paper, a format that is neither readable nor verifiable by an individual voter, they wrote in court papers. Second, the ExpressVote XL does not use a “paper ballot” and relies on software to record the voter’s choice, they wrote.The machine's maker, Omaha, Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software, has blamed incorrect results in a November judicial election in Northampton County on human errors in formatting the ballot. Ultimately, election workers counted the vote on paper ballots.___Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/timelywriter

Judge to hear arguments over Philadelphia's voting machines