While a commission convened to assess the cybersecurity of Pennsylvania's election architecture agrees with a state mandate that the voting systems in all 67 counties include verifiable paper records to prevent hacking, members of the commission also think the state and federal government should do more to help the counties pay for it.

The Blue Ribbon Commission on Pennsylvania's Election Security issued their interim recommendations this week, and will follow up with a full report early next year.

The commission, which is co-chaired by Grove City College President Paul McNulty, praised the voting systems mandate issued in April by Pennsylvania's acting Secretary of State Robert Torres, declaring that all voting systems create a paper trail to maintain the integrity of elections. Torres gave counties a deadline of the end of 2019.

The second of the commission's three interim recommendations urges the state legislators to “appropriate funding to help cover the cost of counties' purchasing voting systems.”

The recommendation goes on to say Congress should “provide additional appropriations” for states that need to replace outdated voting machines with models that provide a paper trail.

Shari Brewer, Butler County's Bureau of Elections director, said in April that bringing the county's voting system up to code will cost an estimated $6 million to $8 million.

Brewer said she and the commissioners have attended presentations by a handful of state-approved voting-system vendors but have not selected a company yet.

The current county voting system would be impossible to hack, Brewer said, because it is never connected to the Internet.

Leslie Osche, the county commissioners chairman, said in April that $14 million in funding for voting system upgrades was available statewide, and that additional funds could be added.

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania estimates the cost for replacing voting machines statewide at $125 million, according the commission's news release.

The election security commission is conducting research on:

n Cybersecurity of voting machines, tabulation and storage

n Cybersecurity of voter registration, rolls and databases, and

n Resiliency and recovery of Pennsylvania's electoral system following a potential breach.

The document announcing the commission's interim recommendations stated that there is no evidence of successful hacking of the 2016 U.S. elections in Pennsylvania or elsewhere.

“However, there is also no question that Pennsylvania's elections, like other states, are under threat,” the news release said.

The commission is comprised of 21 individuals with expertise in various disciplines, including politics, law enforcement, technology and civil rights,

The senior advisers for the commission are former Congressman Charlie Dent, former Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who was also the U.S. Attorney General and Undersecretary General of the United Nations, and Paul H. O'Neill, the Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush.