WARREN — The Trumbull County Board of Elections wants to replace the county’s voting machines before the next election and could move toward a paper ballot system.

The board on Tuesday saw demonstrations from three companies, each offering several different solutions.

Stephanie Penrose, executive director of the board, said the machines the county uses now are nearing the end of their lives.

“We don’t want to use them in another presidential election,” Penrose said.

But the board doesn’t want to change them out before the 2018 election, when the state will chose a new governor, Penrose said.

County Commissioner Dan Polivka said the county is in the early stages of planning for the expense and have not worked out a dollar amount the county can afford to spend on new machines. Polivka said he hopes the state will come through with cash for local governments that could help pay for the cost.

“The state has more than $2 billion in rainy day funds. I would think something as important as elections should warrant spending some of that, especially after how much money the state took out of our pockets,” Polivka said.

Each company offers multiple solutions, including paper ballots with an electronic scanner that tabulates the votes, a touch screen ballot that also tabulates the votes, and touch screens that record the vote, print a receipt that is scanned to tabulate the votes.

The machines cost between $3,200 and $9,500, according to presentations from Dominion Voting Systems, RBM Consulting and Election Systems & Software.

Some of the machines would also require licensing fees and software updates. The county would need multiple units at its 70 voting locations, Penrose said.

The machines the county uses now are nearly 15 years old and are from Dominion Voting, said Mark Beckstrand, with the company.

The machines have touch screens that voters make their selections on, record the vote and print out a receipt, Beckstrand said. The county also has a high-speed scanner to count absentee votes in the main office.

While some of the machines are more expensive up front, they will save the county money in the long run because of the cost for materials, said Jay Perbix with RBM.

And the county will need at least one machine in each polling place that is accessible to the blind and deaf, and the touch screens all three companies offer have special accommodations for those voters.

Lois Doneson, with Dominion Voting, said she has noticed a trend lately in Ohio — at least five counties she is aware of have switched from touch-screen voting to paper ballots.

Craig Seibert, with ES&S said their company supplies Mahoning and Portage counties with their machines. Keeping some technological features like touch screen voting will save the county the cost of paper ballots, which cost about three times what a paper receipt and electronic tabulation cost, Seibert said.

All of the machines have to pass state and federal encryption standards to protect the votes, Beckstrand said.

rfox@tribtoday.com