The iron door looks more like a bank target of Bonnie and Clyde than the courthouse of Buchanan County.

And the vault in the county clerk's office contains plenty of valuable paper - at least as it relates to this part of the state.

On one shelf sits the original record book from the county's founding in 1838. And then stacks of boxes along another wall contain election records from the better part of the county's 171-year history.

County Clerk Pat Conway unrolls a 20-foot document from the 1936 general election, covered in pencil marks - dark smudges denoting another peaceful shift in power. On top of that scroll, Mr. Conway places another set of election results, these from 1980. The difference is startling, even if the methodology isn't all that different.

The election record is printed out on green-and-white, tractor-feed paper, and one part reads Reagan 15,607 (46.70%), Carter 16,277 (48.70%). Mr. Conway took over the office three years after that presidential election, and the paper trail has continued up through the most recent round of voting earlier this month. Buchanan County residents still find paper ballots awaiting them at the polls each year.

"I think there is still a certain confidence in having a piece of paper you can cast your ballot on," said Mr. Conway, who added that the snafus with the 2000 election reinforced that the newer touch-screen voting machines aren't necessarily the best option in his mind. "One of the things I'm happiest with is, we have maintained the paper ballot and the optical scan system for the past 20 years."

In his mind, there is a comfort going to bed Tuesday night knowing if something went wrong, all of those papers ballots still can be counted again.

Technology's influence on the voting process has preoccupied Mr. Conway in recent months. The county clerk announced in August that he plans to run for the 27th House District seat that Ed Wildberger vacated to become Buchanan County's recorder of deeds. After 26 years presiding over the county's elections, Mr. Conway knows better than to predict or project. But if things go his way, February's special election will be his last as the clerk.

Mr. Conway doesn't spend much time addressing that topic, given its uncertainty. Instead, conversation wanders back to the advances in the election process, and the holdouts like that old paper ballot.

Mr. Conway filled out his first ballot in 1968, while stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., for basic training. Newly eligible to vote (and also for the draft), Mr. Conway voted absentee. While he didn't divulge for whom he voted, Mr. Conway offered this hint: Richard Nixon ran on a campaign that promised a way to end the war.

Two years later, he voted absentee again - this time from Vietnam - for a school board election.

"I remember receiving an absentee ballot and thinking how important that opportunity was," he said.

After getting out of the military in 1970, Mr. Conway worked at the Pearl Brewery and then for Missouri's Division of Employment Security office in St. Joseph for eight years. In a bit of irony, the state eliminated his position at the employment office in 1982.

At the urging of friends, Mr. Conway ran for county clerk in 1982, defeating incumbent David Mason by 163 votes - a total he rattles off without hesitation when asked. It's the closest Mr. Conway ever has come to losing an election.

He took office in 1983, just a few years after the county started using the most primitive optical-scan technology. Since then, the county has purchased three different types of equipment - all optical-scan machines that count paper ballots. The most recent upgrade came thanks to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, and Mr. Conway said he believes the current equipment should be adequate for another six to eight years.

All the machines essentially used the same concept. The difference is the decentralization of the counting. Election judges used to bring the ballots to a central machine to be counted. Now, 35 machines across the county count the ballots at the polling stations. The whole tabulation process now takes about an hour after the polls close.

The nostalgic part of Mr. Conway misses the days when more than a hundred people would gather at the courthouse on election nights to track the results for hours, as the ballots trickled in. The clerk used to post the tallies on a chalkboard, and then a few years later, a printout pinned to a bulletin board. He finally utilized a projector to share the results as the technology progressed.

Then, about a decade ago, the clerk's office started posting the results online. Now, a candidate campaigns for eight to 10 months and learns his or her fate at 8 p.m. Tuesday night on a Web site.

"It's almost over too quick," Mr. Conway said. "It seems so defining now. It used to be the results were calculated for hours, if not days."

But for practical purposes, the latest election changes have been a positive, in Mr. Conway's mind. They give the public greater access to results and the process.

So what's next?

When Mr. Conway took over the clerk's office, all the taxes and purchasing still were done by hand. The paper trail has slowed each year, and Mr. Conway envisions the clerk's office conducting future elections via the Internet or through some sort of smart card each voter carries.

"When you think about what you can do better, it's what's going to be out there," said Mr. Conway, who added that technology has advanced about as far as it can go with optical scanning. "It's going to be very interesting and surprising to see what the age of technology will bring to the election process."

Mr. Conway has presided over about 100 elections using optical-scan technology, and there will be at least one more - on Feb. 2. It will be the seventh time he's administered an election in which he also was involved. It will be the first in which Mr. Conway's election is the only one on the ballot.

"It will be a little bit different," he said, "but that's the job you have."

And after Mr. Conway certifies the election, the clerk's office will save a paper record of the results in its vault, just like it has for the past 100 years.

R.J. Cooper can be reached

at rjcooper@npgco.com