CRESTVIEW — County taxpayers will soon have to buy as much as $1.2 million in new vote tabulators, software and related equipment.
Though state law requires all voting be done by paper ballot by 2020, Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux said he will ask the Board of County Commissioners to purchase new equipment this year.
“The current equipment we’re using is 18 years old,” Lux said. “In the last election we had a noticeable failure of some of that equipment. The equipment has a lifetime of about 10-12 years.
“It’s computerized. Are you still using the computer you bought in 1997?” Lux said.
Lux said his office has been cannibalizing spare voting machines for parts because “Even the repair components don’t exist anymore. The memory cards we use, the manufacturer has gone out of business.”
Tuesday, Lux’s equipment review board received presentations from Election Systems & Software and Dominion Voting Systems.
The board — composed of the political parties’ representatives, BCC members, the League of Women Voters and poll workers — will make a purchase recommendation to the county commissioners next month, Lux said.
“The voters’ experience is not going to change drastically. They’re still filling in ovals on a paper ballot,” Lux said.
The tabulators, however, will detect errors and prompt voters to correct their ballots before it is accepted. Common mistakes include voting for more than one candidate for an office, or not completely blackening an oval, Lux said.
If the BCC approves the purchase, Lux plans to have the new system implemented by mid-November. He estimates the cost will be between $800,000 and $1.2 million.
“Those are preliminary numbers,” he stressed, adding that the equipment can be financed over several years. “It’s not like the county’s got to swallow that bitter pill all in one piece.”
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: New Okaloosa County voting equipment could cost as much as $1.2 million