[gumby]

I think it's pretty straightforward to understand: the buyer likely has little to no expertise in the important issues. This is not in any way a slur on election officials, simply the recognition of the (statistically) likely experience of someone who is a local election official.

In addition the way the question is structured by the senators isn't really fair either: if you have n bugs to fix before the ship date, you'll prioritize them and then ship (presumably) the best product you can by the immovable target date. That is also reality.

Though voting is a local matter the Federal Government has a constitutional interest (Article 1, Sections 4 and 5) in the elections to Congress and can mandate minimal standards for voting just as the DoT mandates minimum standards for automobiles. So they could require that whatever machines used are verifiable and non-repudiatable. They could also mandate procedures although those are harder to enforce. If States need to buy equipment suitable for congressional elections they'll presumably use the same equipment for all other elections too.

[specialist]

In my experience, the buyers (election administrators) at the state and local levels know exactly what's going on. Like every where else, there's a revolving door between govt election administrators and the private vendors & consultants.

[gumby]

Hmm, perhaps I was thinking too fine-grained.

[specialist]

Feel compelled to add: I think we want the same thing, eg informed legislators. But from what I've seen, administrators run circles around legislators and their staff. Which is why I flipped on term limits (now oppose) and think legislators need a lot more staff.