CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Electronic voting machines put the responsibility for elections into the hands of private vendors, Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said Sunday.

"We are held hostage to whatever they wish to do, whatever they want to charge and whatever technical support they want to provide," Carper said. "They build the machines, they program the machines and they are the only ones who can fix the machines at the end of the day."

Carper said he hopes the new secretary of state "will take a serious look at printing and using paper ballots, using West Virginia workers and West Virginia technical experts."

In recent days, a handful of voters from six West Virginia counties reported touch-screen machines made by Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb. switched their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.

Carper said the "next shoe to drop will come when the warranty [on ES&S machines] runs out. We will need a new maintenance contract and will have to ask people in Omaha Nebraska to tell us how much we have to pay."

Questions about electronic machines will remain after Election Day, especially in the wake of recent decisions by Maryland and Virginia officials to completely eliminate those machines from their states.

Last Wednesday, Harvey Bartle III, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania, ordered Pennsylvania election officials to issue emergency paper ballots to voters if 50 percent, or more, of any voting precinct's machines malfunction at any given time on Election Day.

Ohio and Colorado officials have stated iVotronic voting machines, made by ES&S, are unfit for elections.

Electronic machines have also sparked controversies in Florida, California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

(Today, four companies make all voting machines used in the country: ES&S, Sequoia Voting Systems, Hart InterCivic and Diebold, now Premier Elections Systems.)

West Virginia received $20 million in federal funds, under the federal Help America Vote Act, to buy its electronic voting machines.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Electronic voting machines put the responsibility for elections into the hands of private vendors, Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper said Sunday.

"We are held hostage to whatever they wish to do, whatever they want to charge and whatever technical support they want to provide," Carper said. "They build the machines, they program the machines and they are the only ones who can fix the machines at the end of the day."

Carper said he hopes the new secretary of state "will take a serious look at printing and using paper ballots, using West Virginia workers and West Virginia technical experts."

In recent days, a handful of voters from six West Virginia counties reported touch-screen machines made by Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb. switched their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.

Carper said the "next shoe to drop will come when the warranty [on ES&S machines] runs out. We will need a new maintenance contract and will have to ask people in Omaha Nebraska to tell us how much we have to pay."

Questions about electronic machines will remain after Election Day, especially in the wake of recent decisions by Maryland and Virginia officials to completely eliminate those machines from their states.

Last Wednesday, Harvey Bartle III, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania, ordered Pennsylvania election officials to issue emergency paper ballots to voters if 50 percent, or more, of any voting precinct's machines malfunction at any given time on Election Day.

Ohio and Colorado officials have stated iVotronic voting machines, made by ES&S, are unfit for elections.

Electronic machines have also sparked controversies in Florida, California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

(Today, four companies make all voting machines used in the country: ES&S, Sequoia Voting Systems, Hart InterCivic and Diebold, now Premier Elections Systems.)

West Virginia received $20 million in federal funds, under the federal Help America Vote Act, to buy its electronic voting machines.

Secretary of State Betty Ireland, in an interview on WOWK-TV on Friday, said, "I believe the Help America Vote Act of 2002 was probably a rush to judgment. I think it probably was not that well thought out."

But, she added, "It is the law of the land. We had to get rid of our punch cards. We had no problem with chads, lever machines."

Since 2005, after the West Virginia Department of Administration's Purchasing Division decided to buy ES&S machines, Carper repeatedly questioned their use.

Beginning with the 2006 elections, optical scan machines have been used in 19 counties and touch-screen machines in 34 counties. Wyoming and Braxton counties still use paper ballots.

Carper recently complained that a defective card made by ES&S created a programming error in Kanawha County's machines.

In an Oct. 14 letter to Jane Greenlaugh, ES&S project manager for West Virginia, Carper wrote, "ES&S needs to be more responsive and honor their commitment to the citizens of West Virginia."

Greenlaugh's husband Gary worked for ES&S for several years before leaving the company on May 30 to find different work.

Ellen Theisen, longtime author of technical manuals for computer software and co-director of VotersUnite.Org, recently published an analysis titled, "Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections."

"Our dependence on vendor support has left our election structure vulnerable to corporate decisions that are not in the public interest, corporate profiteering and claims of trade-secrecy for information that is essential to public oversight of elections," Theisen wrote.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University praised Ireland for asking county clerks to monitor voting machines carefully and urging all West Virginia voters to check all their votes after completing their ballots.

Ireland said she has confidence the votes of all West Virginians will be recorded accurately Tuesday.

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com">pjny...@wvgazette.com or 348-5164.