On the recommendation of the Schuylkill County Board of Elections, the commissioners have chosen Election System & Software as the county’s vendor for the purchase of 363 new voting machines and software. The new system will be in place for the 2020 primary and general elections.

“A lot of time and effort went into the review,” Chairman George Halcovage said during the commissioners’ meeting Wednesday. “Unfortunately, this was pushed upon us, with a time constraint.”

Last year, Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration tasked Pennsylvania counties with replacing their electronic voting systems with machines that leave a verifiable paper trail. The counties responded that the price tag, estimated at $125 million statewide, would be a major problem.

Schuylkill’s cost for the new voting machines is $1.6 million, and Commissioner Gary Hess called it a “partially funded mandate.” Hess said that Schuylkill County should be able to recoup about 60 percent of the cost from state funding, as well as $147,000 in federal Help America Vote Act funds.

The county shopped among several vendors, including Dominion Voting Systems and Election IQ, before opting to stay with Election System & Software. County Administrator Gary Bender said that the new machines will be much the same as the ones currently in use, except that they will produce paper ballots. The county spent about $2 million to purchase the current machines in 2006.

In September, the Carbon County Commissioners purchased 55 new voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems, at a base cost of $421,753, plus $9,000 for two on-site support services. The machines were used in the November general election, but a software glitch in tallying the votes prompted Carbon County election officials to use ballot tapes recorded by the machines to finalize election results.

Schuylkill County included the anticipated cost in developing its 2020 budget.