Franklin County hopes to have new voting machines in time for the municipal election in November.

Voters likely won't notice anything different. They will still get a paper ballot and fill in the bubbles next to their preferred candidates, then feed the ballot into a machine that records their choices.

Getting that message across is one of the reasons the Franklin County Election Board will host a public hearing Tuesday on what the county is doing to meet the state's requirement that all voting systems be updated to meet 21st-century requirements, said Deputy Chief Clerk Jean Byers. She said she's fielded a few calls from people who thought the county was moving to computerized voting machines.

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The directive from Gov. Tom Wolf requires all of Pennsylvania's 67 counties to replace their voting equipment and use a system that keeps a paper record before the 2020 Presidential Election, Byers said.

Franklin County is among the roughly 15 counties in the state that already use paper ballots, Byers said.

While the voting experience won't change, the machines that read the paper ballots will. The county will replace each of its ballot-scanning machines with the updated version. Eighty or so will be purchased - one for each of the county's 75 voting precincts, plus a few extra - for less than the $850,000 county officials predicted last year, Byers said. Firmer numbers have come in since then.

How much of that cost the county will have to pay depends on grant awards and state funding.

"The governor has said that's one of his priorities, to get funding for voting equipment," Byers said. "We know he's proposed $75 million of the next five years. That's...about $150,000 for Franklin County."

The state is to pass its budget by the end of June.

Counties must pick a new voting system that has been certified by both the federal Election Assistance Commission and Pennsylvania Secretary of State.

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Then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in April 2018 called on election officials in all 50 states to make sure that ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election can be verified and audited. Her order followed continued efforts by Russia to interfere in the U.S. electoral process.

Pennsylvania's then-acting Secretary of State Robert Torres told counties that they must provide a paper record and meet 21st-century standards of security, auditability and accessibility no later than Dec. 31, 2019. He said he preferred that the system be in place by the November 2019 general municipal election.



Most of the voting machines in use in Pennsylvania are older than the first iPhone that came out in June 2007, according to Torres. The manufacturers soon will stop supporting their software and hardware.

Public hearing

The public hearing on Tuesday will take place at 11 a.m. in the rear conference room (the old senior center) in the Franklin County Administration Annex, 218 N. Second St., Chambersburg.

People who attend will learn about what the county is doing to meet the governor's directive on voting machines, including proposed equipment, the cost, funding opportunities, and the history of the county's voting system.