DENVER -- A proposal to switch to a statewide paper ballot election is now officially dead and now there's talk of a lawsuit.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 8-1 to kill the bill and ensure that it won't be brought back again this legislative session.

Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon didn't even show up to ask the committee to pass the bill a day after Gov. Bill Ritter and other lawmakers pulled their support. Chairman John Morse said Gordon didn't want to "witness this spectacle."

Morse, a Democrat from Colorado Springs, was the only senator to vote for the bill even though all the funding for it had dried up.

Thursday's vote gives local election officials the authority to hold whatever type of election they think is best, whether by using paper ballots or electronic voting machines.

This is good news for county clerks, who have all along believed that the problems with the electronic voting machines have been overstated. They argued that it would cost at least $10 million for a statewide all-paper ballot elections and it might make voting less convenient for voters by curtailing early voting locations.

Late last year, Secretary of State Mike Coffman decertified most of the state's electronic voting machines because of problems with accuracy and the potential for tampering. Those machines were all recertified last month, after he was given permission to re-evaluate the machines using different fixes and talking to county clerks about their experience using the machines.

Voting machine critics are furious about the change. They are getting together to decide where they stand, legally. A decision on whether or not to pursue a lawsuit would be made in the next 7-10 days.

"If you go to a polling place with electronic machines there, you're probably going to end up standing in line if you come at the wrong time of day. With paper ballots at the polling stations, somebody can hand you a paper ballot, you can go sit on a chair and mark your ballot and get out of the polling place and have voted," said voting machine opponent Harvey Branscomb.

Most of the nearly $11 million pledged for paper ballot elections dried up this week as lawmakers finalized their budget proposal. The money is no longer available because of an unrelated funding dispute with the federal government and because of efforts to balance the state budget. Some lawmakers questioned the need to spend the money on paper ballots now that the voting machines have been recertified.