Gov. Tom Wolf has requested $75 million in state funding over the next five years to help counties comply with his directive to replace voting machines, but it is the mandate itself that continues to trouble some state lawmakers.

In April, Wolf ordered counties to replace their voting machines with ones that produce a paper record for the voter to verify their vote is recorded correctly before casting their ballot. Counties were given until 2020 to comply.

Why the need? Why the rush? How to pay for them? Those were among the questions lawmakers posed to Acting Commonwealth Secretary Kathy Boockvar at a Senate budget hearing for the Department of State on Wednesday.

She said her conversations she has had with county officials indicate that they are pleased the governor is proposing to help pick up the tab for part of this mandate, although they wish he would agree to pay a larger share. The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania estimates the voter machine replacement cost to be about $150 million statewide, although some estimate the cost to be lower. The federal government has agreed to kick in more than $14.1 million.

The state-approved vendors are offering financing options to counties allowing them to pay for their voting systems over three to eight years although local banks sometimes offer lower interest rates, she said, responding to questions from Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon County.

In a hard line of questioning, Sen. Bob Mensch, R-Montgomery County, asked if there had been any machines hacked in Pennsylvania.

Boockvar testified not to her knowledge.

Yet, he said, “We have a rush to 2020. We have a huge expense to our taxpayers. We have vendors who are using excessively high interest rate proposals. We have governments that don’t have a way to pay for these. And we have no example, none, of a real legitimate issue. Why 2020? Why the rush?“

Boockvar responded that Pennsylvania was one of 21 states known to have experienced some hacking attempts of their election systems in the 2016 presidential election.

“Almost all, if not every single one of those 13 states will be upgrading by 2020,” she said. “So if we don’t, we will certainly be the only swing state, if not the only state, left in the country without a voter verified paper trailer. It’s not a position that I think any of us at the county, state or federal level want to be in.”

What’s more, she said homeland security and other experts all agree that states should upgrade to a voter verified paper trail voting system by the next presidential election. She said counties were given more than two years’ notice to make arrangements to replace their voting machines.

Still, Mensch said, “We can do this in a more practical, logical, programmed way, business way, and not creating these pressures on the 67 counties.”

Also driving the need to move swiftly to replace the machines is a settlement of a federal vote-counting lawsuit that 2016 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein filed against the state. To end the lawsuit, the state committed to transitioning to voter verified machines before the 2020 presidential primary.

Boockvar said 13 of the state’s 67 counties are moving forward with plans to upgrade their voting systems by this May’s primary and the majority are expected to follow by the November general election.