The Beaufort County Board of Elections wants the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners to begin setting aside money to replace the county’s aging voting machines.

During its meeting Monday, the board instructed Kellie Harris Hopkins, the county’s elections director, to submit that request when she submits her proposed budget for fiscal year 2017-2018 to county officials. The voting machines are 10 years to 15 years old, according to elections officials.

“I’ve got concerns — I don’t want to buy them now — but if one of these days these machines, because of the age they are, will conk right out. That’s going to be an expenditure that the county really does not deserve to have to hit at one time. I think, to cover ourselves as a board, I’d like to go on record asking them to set aside some money each year for when they do (have to buy new machines) so that way it won’t be such a massive blow to the county,” board member Tom Payne said.

Payne said he believes it’s the board’s fiduciary responsibility to ask the county to set aside money for replacing the voting machines.

“Each time we go in there and check those machines and see all the paper clips and that kind of stuff, I get kind of queasy, but always amazed the night how accurate they are,” Payne said. “One of these days they’re going to give out.”

Asked by board Chairman Jay McRoy how much it would cost to replace the machines, Hopkins placed that estimated cost from $300,000 to $400,000. The board members noted replacing the voting machines at some point will be costly, but they also said the cost of new voting machines “is not going down.”

McRoy said the board should stress to the commissioners it is not asking for immediate replacement of the voting machines. “We need to tell the commissioners we’re not asking for this money (now). We just know that down the road these machines are going to have to be replaced,” he said.

Board member John Tate III said the elections board does not want to go before the commissioners and ask for a half a million dollars. Tate said the county is living “on borrowed time” when it comes to the aging voting machines’ life expectancy.

“The life expectancy on them when we bought them was 10 years,” Hopkins said.

McRoy noted the commissioners set aside money each year to pay for a property-tax revaluation, which, by law, must occur at least every eight years. The board unanimously voted to ask the commissioners to establish a capital-project reserve fund, into which a specified amount of money would be placed each budget year, to pay for the new voting machines.