records shared with the AP from a Freedom of
Information request.
Philadelphia paid more than twice as much for
its ExpressVote XL machines per voter ($27) as
what Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh,
disbursed ($12) for hand-marked paper ballots
and scanners — plus ballot-markers for the
disabled — from the same vendor.
Allegheny County’s elections board rejected
ballot-marking devices as too risky for all
but disabled voters. Its vice chair, state judge
Kathryn Hens-Greco, regretted during a
September hearing having to award ES&S the
county’s business at all given its behavior in
Philadelphia and elsewhere.
But no other vendor offered a hand-marked
option with enough ballot-configuration
flexibility for the county’s 130 municipalities.
While cybersecurity risks can’t be eliminated,
Hens-Greco said, the county would at least have
“the ability to recover” from any mischief: a
paper trail of hand-marked ballots.