MALONE -- Franklin County is hiring two assistants to help Board of Elections commissioners introduce new voting machines and meet state testing mandates.

The workers, one Democrat and one Republican, will start out as full-time employees for the first year, with the understanding the positions could be reduced to part time in the future.

The starting annual salary is $23,500 each.

Democratic Election Commissioner Kathy Fleury and Republican Commissioner Veronica King made their pitch to county legislators recently, saying they needed to hire people as soon as they can to prepare for a possible primary in September.

The county is buying the first 30 of the 55 machines it needs to ensure each election district has a new digital device for voters to use.

"Lever machines will be outlawed in the state of New York," Fleury said, adding that eventually, school-district elections may be conducted with these machines, which could mean even more work for elections officials.

"The snowball's getting larger," she said.

The elections staff has to take extensive training from the company providing the voting machines, get the machines up and running properly, test their performance to ensure they will work when needed and transport the equipment back and forth to far-flung districts across the county.

"There are not enough hours in the day for a staff of four to handle," Fleury said in asking for the full-time help.

On top of the regular work of just getting and keeping the systems operational, she said, the State Board of Elections is requiring the machines be tested quarterly.

When asked if the office could hold off hiring people a while longer, the commissioners said that could complicate things.

"We have a potential Sept. 9 primary, so we don't have a lot of time here, and we don't have the machines yet," Fleury said. "I don't think we're too far ahead of schedule here."

Legislator Paul Maroun (R-Tupper Lake), chairman of the Administrative Committee that oversees the Board of Elections, said the machines will likely be stored securely at the Public Safety Building in the former space used by Franklin County Fire Control dispatchers before that operation moved across the parking lot to the Emergency Services Building.

draymo@pressrepublican.com