Voting machines aging in Kansas, Missouri

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The need to replace aging touch-screen and optical-scan election machines is looming in Kansas and Missouri.

But the enormous cost has left legislators and budget officers with little appetite for the job, The Kansas City Star reported.

According to some estimates, replacing all the voting machines in just Jackson County in Missouri and Johnson County in Kansas would cost between $10 million and $20 million. That's far more than lawmakers have set aside for such purchases.

Election officials say the result is that voters in the 2016 presidential election may confront old, unreliable machines.

"We're just really concerned," said Bob Nichols, the Democratic election director for Jackson County. "Going into a presidential election year with old equipment -- we don't want to be another Florida."

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration described an "impending crisis" in a report issued nearly a year ago.

Like many jurisdictions, Jackson County and Kansas City received one-time federal grants in the mid-2000s to help buy the voting machines they now use. The grants were part of the Help America Vote Act, passed after the Bush-Gore election in an effort to upgrade antiquated voting machines across the nation.

But Washington is not expected to come up with the cash for another round of purchases, and local governments have been reluctant to sock away money for replacement machines.

Shawn Kieffer, Republican election director for the Kansas City election board, said the board has been able to save about $200,000 to replace the 450 optical-scan counters it now uses. That's less than 10 percent of the expected cost to replace all of the board's ballot-counting equipment.

"It's an issue," said Shelley McThomas, the Democratic director in Kansas City, "because we know the feds aren't going to come up with $1 billion or more" to replace machines across the country.

Johnson County owns 2,400 touch-screen machines purchased in the early 2000s by local taxpayers, not with federal grants. Johnson County Election Commissioner Brian Newby said the machines may be able to muddle through the 2016 election but that all bets are off after that.

"You just have to buy new equipment," he said. "Everybody buys new PCs, and that's what really has to happen."

Newby said Johnson County officials have started talking about a funding mechanism, including potentially issuing bonds for equipment replacement.