Required voting machine update discussed
By Melinda L. Lucas
Shackelford County elected officials continued to work on the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, spending a good part of Monday afternoon going through the line items prepared by county treasurer Tammy Brown.
During the three-hour session that morning, the commissioners and other officers watched a demonstration of new voting machines, voted to change copier providers, and finalized the verbiage to advertise for bids to repair a bridge on CR 179 (Caldwell Lane).
Voting Machines
John Thompson of Hart InterCivic briefed the elected officials on a couple of options to replace the county’s aging voting machines, which have been in use for more than 15 years.
He explained that the governor recently signed a bill requiring that all voting systems in the state be updated by September 2026 to an “auditable” system that provides a “paper trail” rather than just digital records.
Thompson demonstrated two hybrid systems that combine electronic counting and digital security with saved paper ballots for each voter.
The cost of new equipment is estimated at more than $150,000, but Shackelford County has about $120,000 in Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding that can be used for the purchase.
After discussing whether to try to implement the new system by the November 2021 constitutional amendment election, the commissioners decided to table any action in order to give county clerk and election officer Cheri Hawkins some time to evaluate the two options.
Copier Change
Brett Beckham of All Copy of Abilene presented a proposal to take over the contract of 11 copiers used in the Courthouse and the Law Enforcement Center.
The company will buy out the current contract, he explained, replacing the machines with Minolta brand copiers, saving the county almost $600 a year in lease payments alone, not counting the lower cost of copies.
The commissioners voted to approve the All Copy contract.
Other Business
•A bid notice and time line was approved for repairs on a bridge on CR 179, with a deadline of Aug. 6 to submit bids, which will be opened at the Aug. 9 meeting.
•County judge Robert Skelton reported that the offices of State Representative Glenn Rogers and State Senator Charles Perry were both aware of the ongoing investigations into the operations at Texas Renewables rendering plant and are “working to support the investigation.”
•A motion passed to replace a server in the county’s IT system at a cost of $13,669, an item discussed earlier in the year but postponed as the commissioners waited to see if there would be funding available before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
•Skelton proposed that the commissioners consider using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to give county employees a pay increase in the next budget, but there was no action.
•Brown was authorized to advertising for bank depository bids.
•After discussing the possible cost of installation, the commissioners decided to withdraw a preliminary application through the West Central Texas Council of Governments for a generator that would power the Courthouse in case of an outage.
