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By Kay Stephens
kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG -- Blair County leaders are starting to think about purchasing new voting machines, something they say will have to be confronted because the current system provides no paper trail and the current machines, first used in 2006, are becoming obsolete.
If one of the voting machines goes blank at this time, county Director of Elections Sarah Seymour said Tuesday, the county can send that machine back to the company for repair and replacement.
"But as of 2020," Seymour said, "we won't be able to send it back because they won't have parts."
In the 2016 presidential election, Pennsylvania was often criticized as one of 11 states using machines which store votes electronically and generate no paper record for voters to check the accuracy of their selections. In response to that criticism, state leaders defended the machines and the vote tallies as accurate.
But the latest discussions, county leaders said Tuesday, are focused on when Pennsylvania will no longer certify votes cast in counties using electronic systems with no paper trail to verify accuracy.
"They're leaning that way," Commissioner Terry Tomassetti said.
It sort of sounds like taking a step backwards in terms of technology, commissioners Chairman Bruce Erb admitted, but he offered no protest of that potential change.
"I understand the reason behind it … and I kind of agree with it," Erb said.
As for the cost of a new voting system, commissioners offered no estimates.
When Blair County bought its current voting system for use in 2006, it paid $1.22 million for 300 voting machines and related devices, then subsequently bought 50 additional voting machines in 2008. Most of the expense was covered with federal funds available from the Help America Vote Act which forced the county to abandon its punch-card voting system used since 1983.
Commissioners said they've seen no sign of financial help from the federal government and don't believe the state is in a financial position at this time to offer help.
Some states are providing financial support for such purchases, Regional Sales Manager John Hastings of Dominion Voting said Tuesday after the weekly commissioners meeting where he demonstrated his company's voting equipment.
The Toronto, Canada, company offers a two-sided paper ballot system that voters can mark and feed into a computer scanner for counting, Hastings said. It also offers a touch-screen voting system that can count ballots and generates a paper report for each voter to check the accuracy of their selections.
Seymour said that representatives for Election Systems and Software, a company headquartered in Omaha, Neb., will attend the commissioners June 20 meeting. Representatives for Hart InterCivic, the company headquartered in Austin, Tex., and provider of the county's current system, will attend a meeting in July or August.
The timetable for a purchase, Seymour said, would be to have a new voting system ready to introduce in November 2018 or the following primary. The next presidential election is in 2020.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.