The machines you used to vote on Nov. 3 are getting close to the end of the line, and Lubbock County leaders are about to start talking about what comes next.
County commissioners will hear a briefing on buying a new voting system at a special meeting Monday morning. No purchase vote is on the agenda yet. But the price tags in play, from about $1.5 million to nearly $9 million, make this a conversation worth following if you pay county taxes or work the polls.
The short version
- What: A briefing on replacing Lubbock County’s voting equipment, plus the official canvass of the Nov. 3 election results.
- When: Monday, Nov. 16, at 9 a.m.
- Where: Fifth floor of the Lubbock County Courthouse, 904 Broadway.
- Is anything being decided? Elections Administrator Troy Havard told Lubbock Lights the only action he’s asking commissioners to take Monday is the canvass. The equipment item is listed for discussion only on the posted agenda.
Why the county is looking at new equipment
Lubbock County uses Hart InterCivic’s Verity system, which is nearly a decade old. A county memo says vendor support for the hardware is winding down, Lubbock Lights reported. The company that services the county’s two central ballot scanners has told the county this will be its last year doing that work, and that maintenance agreement runs through August 2027.
The briefing also follows a rough patch at the polls. During this month’s election, a scanner at one early-voting site malfunctioned, and the county rescanned 5,681 paper ballots from that site to make sure they were counted correctly. That rescan helped push the release of unofficial results into early Wednesday morning, as we reported at the time. In April, a separate machine problem led the county to use emergency paper ballots at some polling places, according to Lubbock Lights.
The three price tags
Lubbock Lights obtained three quotes from Hart InterCivic, the county’s current vendor. Here’s what each would buy, according to that reporting:
- Full replacement: $8,985,550 upfront, plus $521,115 a year in fees starting in the second year. That covers 1,200 ballot-marking devices, 225 activation devices, 225 polling-place scanners and two central scanners.
- Replacement without new polling-place scanners: $7,171,500 upfront, plus $419,715 a year from year two. That has 100 fewer ballot-marking devices and leaves out the 225 new polling-place scanners.
- Scanner upgrade only: about $1.51 million upfront, plus $77,400 a year from year two. This keeps the county’s existing Verity ballot-marking equipment and adds 225 polling-place scanners and upgrades.
A few caveats matter here. Two of those quotes listed an Oct. 30 expiration date, and the nearly $9 million quote expires Monday, the same day as the briefing. Hart says taxes would be figured separately. And Hart told the county it expects Texas certification for pairing new scanners with the existing Verity equipment no earlier than the third quarter of 2027, Lubbock Lights reported. In other words, the cheapest option has a timing question attached to it.
Buy in 2027, or wait until 2029?
Havard laid out two timelines: buy new equipment in 2027, or keep the current system through 2028 and buy in 2029. What he wants to avoid is rolling out brand-new machines during a presidential election year.
“You do not want to go into a presidential cycle, whether it’s the primaries or the presidential race itself, using that system for the first time,” he told Lubbock Lights.
Buying in 2027 would give voters and poll workers a lower-stakes year to get used to the new system. Waiting until 2029 means stretching the current equipment through one more big election cycle. Either way, Havard said, commissioners would need to find the money or plan ahead for it.
Two other election changes on the table
- Voter registration software. Havard wants the county to consider a third-party system to manage its voter-registration database while still exchanging data with the state. The county recently cleared a backlog of more than 8,000 voter-registration records delayed by a state software failure, according to Lubbock Lights.
- Precinct numbers. Commissioners will also discuss changing how voting precincts are numbered. Lubbock Lights reported the proposal is to move to four-digit precinct numbers.
How to weigh in
Monday’s meeting is open to the public. If you want to speak, the county requires you to sign the clerk’s registry before the meeting starts. Speakers get up to two minutes and can only address items on the agenda, according to the posted agenda. Anyone who needs special assistance can call the agenda clerk at 806-775-1330 at least 48 hours ahead.
Because Monday is a discussion, any actual purchase would have to come back on a future agenda. We’ll keep watching for it and let you know when a vote is scheduled.
Sources
- Lubbock Lights, Nov. 12-13, 2026: https://lubbocklights.com/lubbock-county-voting-machines-2028/
- Lubbock County Commissioners Court special meeting agenda, Nov. 16, 2026: https://lubbockcounty.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=A&ID=1452244&GUID=18339EE1-D62C-437F-961B-0E1BBD7EAD07
- Lubbock Chronicle, Nov. 13, 2026: https://www.lubbockchronicle.com/p/lubbock-county-to-discuss-new-voting-equipment
- Hub City UnCovered, Nov. 5, 2026: https://hubcityuncovered.com/lubbock-county-election-results-delay-machine-error-rescan-local-races-2026/
