Ventura County’s elections chief said Saturday that new state-imposed security mandates on two types of voting machines would have little local effect.

Ninety-nine percent of voters in Ventura County use paper ballots fed into optical scan machines, while fewer than 100 voters — typically those visually impaired — use the touch-screen machines now facing increased security protections.

“This won’t present a hardship at all,” Ventura County Clerk & Recorder Phil Schmit said.

Schmit was among elections officials Saturday who criticized California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s ruling about the new security protections Friday, just nine minutes before a midnight deadline.

In her announcement, Bowen expressed concern that several brands of electronic voting machines used in California are vulnerable to hacking and ordered that some machines made by Diebold Election Systems and Sequoia Voting Systems be limited to one per polling place to reduce the chances of tampering.

The touch-screen Sequoia systems are used in Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, among others.

The most affected counties now will have to scramble to find alternate equipment six months before California holds its presidential primary.

Bowen had set Friday as the deadline to tell counties whether their voting equipment would be decertified because of California’s accelerated election schedule next year.

Her decision followed the results of an eight-week security review of the voting systems that she said revealed some vulnerabilities that would allow hackers to manipulate the machines “with little chance of detection and with dire consequences.”

As part of the audit, University of California computer experts found that voting machines sold by three companies — Hart InterCivic, Diebold and Sequoia — were vulnerable to hackers and that voting results could be altered.

On Saturday, Schmit joined other elections officials and Sequoia company officials in downplaying the results of Bowen’s audit, saying they reflected unrealistic, worst-case scenarios that would be counteracted by security measures taken by the companies and local election officials.

“The review was conducted in a laboratory setting,” Schmit said. “They had five weeks to do it and her computer experts physically broke into the machines with the computer software codes in hand.

“Do you think that could really happen in a polling place? Someone walking in with a toolkit surely would be seen.”

Schmit said that while Bowen’s decision would not greatly affect Ventura County, it will touch other counties that rely more heavily on the touch-screen machines and could erode public confidence in the machines.

He called the timing of her late announcement “a political move” to avoid public reaction. His office was told she would make her announcement Friday at 9:30 a.m., he said.

Bowen could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Sixty-nine voters used the touch-screen machines in Ventura County in November’s statewide general election, Schmit said, but that number was artificially high because a polling place in Oak Park requested people use them after poll workers feared they’d run out of printed ballots.

The Sequoia machines are helpful for blind voters because they have headsets to hear the ballot contents read aloud and verbal instructions to use the machines. The person’s ballot selections also can be read aloud before the ballot is cast.

“We have not had any problems with them,” Schmit said.

The security requirements Bowen imposed include:

n Reinstalling the software before the Feb. 5. election to ensure it has not already been tampered with.

n Placing special seals at vulnerable parts of the machines to reveal tampering.

n Securing each machine at the close of each day of early voting.

n Assigning a specific election monitor to safeguard each machine.

n Conducting a complete manual count of all votes cast.

Sequoia spokeswoman Michelle Shafer said the company did not anticipate any problems in meeting the requirements in Ventura County.

“Most of the safeguards she will be requiring are already in place in Ventura County,” Schmit said. “I don’t like how she handled this at all.”

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.