Wolf orders bond issue to help counties buy voting machines
HARRISBURG >> Gov. Tom Wolf is moving to borrow up to $90 million to help Pennsylvania’s counties pay for new voting machines ahead of 2020’s election, announcing the step Tuesday after a dispute between the Democrat and the Republican-controlled Legislature doomed funding legislation.
Wolf said he was ordering a bond issue that would reimburse each county for 60% of their cost, according to Wolf’s administration, which provided little detail about the financing it will seek or the timeline for the move.
Wolf began pressing counties last year to replace their voting machines before 2020 after federal authorities warned Pennsylvania and at least 20 other states that Russian hackers targeted them during 2016’s presidential election.
That prompted a wide range of election integrity advocates and experts to urge states to switch to machines that produce an auditable paper trail.
Approval is required from the board of a state economic development financing agency that Wolf wants to use, and Republicans say they are researching what sort of legal authority the governor has to order the move.
Wolf suggested that legislative approval of the borrowing would be preferable and that Tuesday’s move is designed to at least give counties confidence that they won’t be left to pay a tab expected to exceed $100 million.
“It’s a proposal that we can move forward with, I think, and if there’s something that the Legislature wants to do that they think is better, again I’m all ears,” Wolf told reporters after an unrelated news conference in the Capitol. “But in the meantime, I think it’s important to show good faith and that’s what I’m doing here.”
Wolf’s administration has warned lawmakers that failing to replace Pennsylvania’s roughly 25,000 voting machines by next year’s elections could leave it as the only state without voterverifiable paper systems, and certainly the only presidential battleground state in that position.
The money raised by the bond would have to be used for voting machines that have enhanced anti-hacking security, produce a paper record that allows a voter to double-check how their vote is recorded, and allow election officials to audit election results, Wolf’s administration said.