California county faces high costs, Dem resistance in replacing voting machines with hand counts

“…Costs for deep-red Shasta County’s move to hand-counting ballots could run to over $4 million in fiscal year 2024-25.

After ending its election services contract with Dominion Voting Systems in favor of hand-counting ballots, a California county is running into high cost and manpower estimates — and resistance from Democratic state officials — as it makes the transition.

The Board of Supervisors for deep-red Shasta County, which has more than 110,000 registered voters, voted 3-2 in January to terminate its contract with Dominion over concerns about the voting machines. The board later decided to move to hand-counting for all of its elections.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Patrick Jones said that many county residents don’t trust electronic voting machines.

“There is a great sense they would like to return to something simpler and safer, and more secure from outside hacking,” Jones said…”