Clarion County commissioners said Tuesday they will be leasing voting equipment from Dominion Voting Systems Corp.
The current Clarion County Election Board recommended Dominion. The county will lease the voting machines from Dominion at an annual rate of $650,008 a year.
The state will pay for 60 percent of the cost with an additional $30,000 from the federal government.
The new system employs paper ballots that are counted at the precinct. Those results are then tabulated at the Clarion County administration building in Clarion.
Heasley said Dominion uses a Windows 10 program.
“They (Dominion) were not the lowest bid but they provided a free warranty, free shipping and for the first year they will have staff on duty for three days during the primary and general elections,” Heasley said. “They are also taking all of the old equipment free of charge. Other companies wanted us to pay them for taking the old machines.”
“When you consider all of those things, they would have been the lowest bidder,” said Commissioner Ted Tharan.
“The nice thing about leasing the machines is that if anything goes wrong with them or they are decertified we can discontinue the lease,” said Tharan.
The county will be responsible for the storage of the machines. The paper ballots will be stored until they can be legally destroyed.
“We still have all of the old ballot boxes, including a few wooden ones,” said Tharan.
Dominion sells electronic voting hardware and software in the U.S. and Canada. The company’s international headquarters are in Toronto, and its U.S. headquarters are in Denver.
The county commissioners were candidates this year and weren’t able to serve on the election board. Judge James Arner appointed Nancy Kadunce, Karen Knepshield and Judy Fiscus to the election board.
Due to unresolved elections, the board will not complete its work until Dec. 23.
“We were facing a deadline and the election board put an awful lot of work into making this decision. We thank them for their efforts,” said Heasley.
“Between now and the spring election we have to negotiate the contract and train the pollworkers on the procedures and initiate an education program for the voters,” said Heasley. “There is still a lot of work to do.”