HONESDALE, PA — A grant offer of about $55,000 received a distinctly cool reception at last week’s meeting of the Wayne commissioners.

Introducing the agenda item as a state “priority,” chief clerk Vicky Botjer editorialized a bit, suggesting that the amount being provided was “more than not enough to cover us.”

Meeting last Wednesday, in observance of the Thursday holiday, the commissioners did approve the grant application for $54,851.58 in federal grant funding. Funding would go toward replacing election machines as mandated under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.

Commissioner Wendell Kay explained the official reaction by recalling that the county’s last round of voting machine replacements, 10 years-ago, cost Wayne roughly $300,000. He did not anticipate a cost reduction this time.

Following the chaotic 2000 presidential election vote count in Florida, and the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision naming George W. Bush as president, Congress moved to improve and protect the election process with the HAVA legislation.

In April, PA Acting Secretary of State Robert Torres announced a deadline of Dec. 31, 2019, for counties to make commitments for the purchase of new paper-audit-trail-compliant election equipment. The expectation was that new equipment would be in place by the April 2020 primary election.

The intent, according to the County Commissioners Association of PA (CCAP) is to bring equipment up to latest standards for security and audit. The update is a “a priority for Governor Wolf, [and] is based in large part on widespread perceptions that the elections equipment is vulnerable, and without audit capacity the public confidence in the results is jeopardized.”

“We’ll carry it out. None of us want another Florida situation, especially with the current administration,” Kay said.

Laying the groundwork for legal action following his expected defeat in 2016, Donald Trump repeatedly alleged during the campaign that the outcome was already fixed against him. Trump subsequently appointed a commission to investigate election fraud, which found none and quickly dissolved. Should prospects continue to darken for his 2020 re-election, observers anticipate Trump will again claim fraud.

Counties’ concern with the announced timeline is securing sufficient funding, estimated to be about $125 million, depending on the machines selected by counties, to make statewide replacements on that timeline. No funding was appropriated for voting systems in the FY 2018-2019 state budget. The federal HAVA appropriation—which for Pennsylvania amounts to about $13.5 million, plus a required five percent state match to bring the total to $14.1 million—leaves counties on the hook for the remainder.

“A lot of counties are not far into the election machine replacement process, including us,” said Commissioners’ chair Brian Smith. “One size does not fit all. Some 16 (including Wayne) counties are asking for staged implementation of these recommendations, but the governor’s office is pressuring for the 2020 election,” he said.

“We have a paper-trail now. Our machines function well. There is no need for this,” he said.

The CCAP membership adopted a resolution in August calling for a contingency plan to be put in place in case the deadlines established by the state cannot be met due to funding or logistical matters. Specifically, funding will be insufficient or unavailable, enough certified compliant equipment may not be available, and there may not be adequate time for deployment and training of election staff in advance of the crucial presidential primary.

Only one system was certified for use in Pennsylvania this year, while two others were expected to be certified in early November. The state expects to place the equipment on state contracts, to enable county purchase without having to go to competitive bid.

The Wayne County Bureau of Elections has also sponsored two table-top exercises with the Department of Homeland Security, with county participation, on elections security scenarios. In addition, it has worked to explain the security measures in place that rendered ineffective the attempted hack of the system during the 2016 election cycle, and its continuing work to improve cyber security protocols.

The equipment upgrades resulted from a 2017 Joint State Government Commission (JSGC) study that made several recommendations, including funding for voting systems, new incentives for poll-worker training, an allowance for counties to consider actual voter participation levels in printing ballots  and improvements to election security and integrity.