Group of voters asking Westmoreland County commissioners to switch to paper ballots for election

GREENSBURG, Pa. — Westmoreland County has been using the same voting process since April 2020, but a group of local voters are urging county commissioners to reconsider.

The county spent $7.1 million in 2019 to buy 900 machines that are used today.

“The law changed to mandate a verified paper trail,” said Commissioner Ted Kopas.

A voter gets a blank ballot and inserts it into the machine.

They make their selections on the touch screen, and the machine prints those choices on the ballot.

If it’s correct, the voter then takes it to a scanner. If it’s incorrect, they take it to an election precinct worker for a new ballot.

“So in Westmoreland County and every county throughout Pennsylvania, there are indeed already paper ballots being used,” Kopas told Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek.

At a meeting earlier this week, a group of about a half-dozen voters in Westmoreland County discussed their concerns with Westmoreland’s voting machines. They claimed the system used by the county could be hacked. They want the county to switch to pen-and-paper ballots.

But county commissioners pushed back on that – saying the machines are not able to be connected to the internet.

“The system works. It’s safe. It is secure, and there are no plans to change,” Kopas said.

Havranek reached out to Bill Bretz, the chairman of the Westmoreland County Republican Committee. He agreed.

“Our focus needs to be on getting people to participate in the election,” Bretz told Havranek in a statement. “The method on how ballots are done is better to do after this cycle ends. There is a paper ballot that comes from the ballot marking machine. The voter is able to audit it when they get it in their hand. The ballot counter is offline.”

If the county were to switch to pen-and-paper voting, they’d have to do so by Sept. 23.

County officials estimate that would cost nearly $250,000 to print more than 300,000 ballots.

Kopas, the lone Democratic commissioner, said a change isn’t likely to happen.

“We have no intention or designs to change our voting systems here,” Kopas said. “We can’t allow imagined problems to fester themselves into real ones. It’s really a threat to our democracy.”

The two Republican commissioners, Doug Chew and Sean Kertes, did not return Havranek’s request for comment.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

©2024 Cox Media Group