CONNECTICUT, USA — New voting machines are coming to Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday.
Lamont said that the Connecticut State Bond Commission will vote at its upcoming meeting on Oct. 6 to allocate $25 million to buy new ballot-counting tabulators for elections and primaries statewide.
The machines will replace the existing ones, Lamont said.
The governor serves as chair of the commission and sets its meeting agendas. He said he recommends the members approve the funding since the current machines were put in place in 2006 and are "showing signs of aging." Lamont said that the machines should be replaced for the continued functioning of accurate and timely election results.
"Implementing a statewide replacement of all these machines now will ensure that election workers continue to have the tools they need to conduct an Election Day that runs smooth and free of any glitches that could potentially be caused by outdated technology," Lamont said.
Once the commission approves the funding, it's expected that the Office of the Secretary of the State will solicit proposals from manufacturers to supply the state with the equipment.
Once the machines are bought, the state will give them to every municipality, and existing machines will be retired.
Lamont said that the state is funding the entirety of the cost to buy the machines, and it's estimated that the allocation will help the state acquire several thousand traditional tabulators and dozens of high-speed ones used to count absentee ballots.
This changeover will be the first time Connecticut is implementing a statewide replacement of the voting machines since it stopped using the lever machines 17 years ago when switching to paper ballot readers. That change happened due to a nationwide requirement by Congress in 2002 for states to have voting systems that kept a paper record of every vote cast in case an election was audited or recounted.
Because lever machines couldn't produce a paper ballot, they were retired.
The Oct. 6 Bond Commission meeting will be held at 10:30 a.m. in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. Additionally, video of the meeting will stream live here.
Jennifer Glatz is a digital content producer at FOX61 News. She can be reached at jglatz@fox61.com.
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