RALEIGH -- Wake County commissioners want a better deal than the one offered by the company that has the voting-machine franchise in every North Carolina county.
Election Systems & Software, represented in North Carolina by New Bern-based Printelect, became the state's sole supplier in 2006.
Cherie Poucher, director of the Wake County Board of Elections, told Wake County commissioners Monday that the company spent about 80 hours cleaning and maintaining the county's election machines for a $200,000 fee last year.
The issue was before the commission because ES&S has been pushing a maintenance agreement to Wake County's elections board and others across the state. State funds of about $600,000, which brought millions in federal aid for elections, have been frozen by the state legislature, so Wake is trying to cut its own deal with Printelect.
The company asked Wake to pay $170,000 a year in a five-year contract, or $213,000 for a single year, Poucher said.
Instead, county attorney Scott Warren is preparing a proposal under which Wake would pay to have two of its technicians trained to the company's standards, continue to pay $17,000 a year in software fees and shell out $38 per voting machine, for a total between $50,000 and $70,000 annually, officials said.
Wake County commissioners asked staff to approach state legislators and the state board of elections about making whatever changes are needed to allow the local boards of elections to make the most cost-efficient provisions for maintaining machines.
In another step in a long-discussed effort, commissioners agreed to join with Durham County in a new managed-care organization to work with people with behavioral health problems in both counties.
This new entity will also contract with Johnston and Cumberland counties to work with residents there. Durham County has tentatively approved the agreement.
Some members balked at the possibility that the new organization would be located in a building owned by the Triangle Transit Authority, putting the nonprofit in competition with commercial brokers. But the entire board agreed to the overall contract between the two counties.
