$15 million needed for e-voting machines

Secretary of State Dean Heller told lawmakers Nevada needs about $15 million to buy more electronic voting machines.

He and his Chief Deputy Renee Parker told the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday the money is needed to replace the older-style Sequoia voting machines in Clark County with newer machines, which have voter-verifiable paper printers attached.

"The vendor, as of November, we thought they were going to be able to retrofit the Clark County machines with the paper trail," said Parker. "It just came to our attention in the last week and a half they are not."

She said under Nevada's existing contract with Sequoia, the machines are $2,637 apiece and the paper-trail printer another $500.

Clark County needs up to 4,300 of the new machines.

Heller said most of the money will have to come from the state because, under President Bush's proposed budget, Nevada will get only about $3 million more from the Help America Vote Act. HAVA funding provided $9 million to buy Sequoia machines for the other Nevada counties before the last election.

Heller said Sequoia is now charging other states up to $1,500 more for the same machines and printers. Because the old machines can't be retrofitted with the printers, he said, the state has no choice.

Heller said his office still has $4 million in HAVA funds. He needs that money to provide more voting machines for Washoe, Douglas and other counties where there were long voting lines in November because they didn't have enough machines.

Director of Administration Perry Comeaux confirmed the $15 million is not part of the governor's proposed budget. He said he hasn't had a chance to talk to the governor about the request yet.