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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin lashed out against the head of the Senate’s elections oversight committee after she helped to sink Ardoin’s voting machine replacement work.

Ardoin sent a letter Friday to Sen. Sharon Hewitt accusing her of irresponsibly disparaging his search efforts and damaging his agency’s reputation for running elections.

Both Ardoin and Hewitt are Republicans.

The letter comes two days after Ardoin scrapped his search for a company to replace 10,000 voting machines across Louisiana amid criticism from Hewitt, other Republicans and possible bidders.

Hewitt chalked up Ardoin’s letter to embarrassment about having to end a voting system replacement search twice in three years without new machines.