Don't be surprised if the Bill White campaign personally buys Houston a thousand or so electronic voting machines to replace the 10,000 destroyed in a fire early Friday morning.

While there are many losers in the fallout from the fire, which destroyed all of Harris County's voting machines, the big winner might be Rick Perry.

Running in a tight race for Governor — Perry currently has a single-digit lead over White with less than two months to go — White will need every vote he can get from Houston and Harris County, his base and the post populous county in Texas.

But whether the county clerk decide to run with a fraction of the standard electronic machines (which they say is the plan) or revert to an alternate ballot system like paper, Houston voting will be complicated to say the least.

"They're going to have chaos no matter what. The question is what kind of chaos do they want to have," says Rice University computer scientist and electronic voting expert Dan Wallach.

Though several other counties have offered spare eSlate machines (Fort Worth's Tarrant County, for example, says the 50 extra they bought after high turnout in 2008 could be made available), there is simply no way to procure 10,000 machines by Nov. 2. Buying replacement machines from Austin-based Hart Intercivic, which makes the eSlates that Harris County uses, might not be a possibility before the election.

"With this kind of technology, they aren't just going to have 1,000 or 10,000 eSlates sitting in a warehouse to deliver. Usually you place an order and then they build the machines and it's delivered several months later," says Wallach.

Wallach identifies three options for the county clerk, each of which have significant drawbacks.

The first option would be to stick with the electronic machines and re-use the early voting machines on election day. But to do so, according to Wallach, would risk vote loss. During voting, each machine generates three tallies of votes: an internal one in the individual machine, a second log in the Judge's Booth Controller, a centralized system that connects to a group of machines, and a removable memory card. Then you take that info and upload it onto a computer, and after the election results are certified, the information is erased from the machines, leaving only the computer copy.

"If you wipe out all those copies before seeing the election results, with only one copy on the election management system, you're walking on a tightrope," says Wallach. "You just wiped out the thing you would have gone back to if something went wrong. What if the computer fails? Or even if you make more copies of the list, what if some machines were forgotten or didn't get their votes recorded? Then you've destroyed votes — and this in an election where you are asking people to vote early to create less demand on election day."

Whether or not early voting machines are re-used on election day, a shortage of machines will be an issue. Polling places might go from having six machines to one, potentially creating huge lines and delays. Another option would be to abandon the polling place model and use a limited number of election centers, as in early voting. This would eliminate the need to wipe machines but wouldn't negate the potential effect of long lines.

"Plus there's a huge PR aspect to it," says Wallach. "Most people are just accustomed to voting at their neighborhood elementary. What about people who can't get there because they don't have a car. Are you going to have shuttles? It's one solution, but its radical."

Harris County clerks office spokesman Hector De Leon says the county is currently not considering Wallach's third option: switching to a paper ballot.

"You'd have to print them individually for each precinct, where there are different state senate reps, different state house reps, etc. This specific election has a ridiculous amount of issues on the ballot — it's going to be a really big ballot. Will it fit on both sides of an 8.5 by 14 sheet? Will it fit on 11 by 17?" he asks. "Then there's the issue of makeshift ballot boxes — would we use bankers boxes? How would they be delivered?We'd have to train the volunteers and train the voters how to use it. You'd have to completely redesign how you run the election."

(For a great argument against paper ballots, check out the challenged ballots quiz on Minnesota Public Radio)

Feeling despondent about what's going to happen on Nov. 2? Wallach says you should be. "We haven't even begun to talk about security issues. Procedural chaos is an easy way for security problems to be hidden."

Wallach says a chaotic election day and a close election could also lead to a prolonged court battle similar to the Minnesota Senate race in 2008.

"If they have a close election and a loser that feels that they perhaps might have really won if not for the procedural chaos, they are going to sue," Wallach says.

One thing's for sure: We hope the outcome of any election — local or statewide — isn't hampered by a fire and a county that keep all its electronic eggs in one basket.