While acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Robert Torres on Thursday ordered all counties to have voting machines that create paper records selected by the end of next year, the county commissioners aren't panicking yet.

“We have been planning for some time to bring Pennsylvania's voting machines up to 21st century standards of security, auditability and resiliency,” Torres said in a news release issued Thursday.

Torres said the state will receive nearly $14 million in federal funding to assist the counties with replacing their voting systems, which amounts to less than $226,000 per county if split evenly among Pennsylvania's 67 counties.

Shari Brewer, director of the county election bureau, said replacing the county's current voting system with a similar state-approved, paper record system would cost $6 million to $8 million.

But Leslie Osche, chairman of the county commissioners, said Thursday that while $14 million in funding has been announced initially, additional funds could be added.

“I'm not panicking yet,” Osche said, “because there's still a lot to play out.”

Brewer said because the voting machines used in the county are reaching the end of their life cycle, she and the county commissioners have been looking at state-approved voting systems in recent months.

Brewer said the county has the option to forego the electronic-style machines it now uses in favor of a less expensive, all-paper system that would still use an optical scanner to count votes.

Brewer said she is no computer expert, but she doesn't see how the current system could be hacked because it is not connected to the Internet and is not capable of connecting to Wi-Fi.

Brewer said because of this, she does not want voters to worry about casting their ballots in upcoming elections.

“We want to make sure that people know the voting equipment is approaching the end of its life cycle, but it remains fully-operational and secure at this time,” she said.

Brewer and the commissioners are waiting for more vendors to have their systems certified so they can continue to attend presentations.

She said they will not need to attend an April 26 vendor fair at the state Farm Show complex in Harrisburg being planned by Torres because they have seen the systems that are state certified.

“We are going to talk to state legislators about costs and what implementation costs might be so they have a clear understanding of what this is going to mean for their constituents,” Osche said.

Torres is confident the mandate is best for Pennsylvania voters, and wants to make it as easy as possible to implement for counties.

“We want to bring about the system upgrades so Pennsylvania voters are voting on the most secure and auditable equipment as promptly and feasibly as possible, while also being supportive of the counties' need to plan and budget for the new systems,” he said.