$110K grant to help St. Joe County with security, speed in election process

SOUTH BEND — The St. Joseph County Clerk’s office is receiving $110,260 through the state to tighten up security for more than 1,000 pieces of election equipment and to buy a high-speed scanner for a 2024 election that, as Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales said Friday, will see “massive turnout.”

Morales stopped at the clerk’s office Friday to announce the grant, part of $2 million his office is awarding to 64 counties to improve their election processes.

“We need to be ready,” he said, referring to presidential elections that likely will spur heavy voting in addition to county, state and school board elections. “We want as many eligible voters to be part of the process.”

The state’s $2 million comes from the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, which aimed to make improvements to voting systems and voter access after issues were identified in the 2000 elections.

County Clerk Amy Rolfes wasn’t specific about the security measures that would be added, to avoid risking that security. But she said that it has to do with their storage, including in a warehouse that Morales had toured on a prior visit when the county was applying for the grant.

She said there is good security now, but she noted that there were some issues with storage that needed improving. She said her office worked collaboratively with other election-oriented organizations for input on the security. That included a visit she and her staff made to a program at Ball State University that advises the Secretary of State and the Indiana Election Commission on the certification of voting machines and electronic poll books in Indiana. It’s known as the Voting System Technical Oversight Program.

Rolfes emphasized that, when she campaigned for office in 2022, she vowed to improve election security.

To be clear, Rolfes said, the new measures don’t have anything to do with the controversial investigation into a ballot storage room and keys after the 2022 primary elections, where no criminal wrongdoing was found.

The county’s funding will also purchase a new high-speed scanner that will be used on election night to count ballots in a “more timely” manner, she said. The county already has two scanners, but she expects the number of ballots to “almost double” this year.

Morales said the HAVA money has been used for different purposes in the past, including for advertising, but he wanted it to support counties in whatever they needed to improve their election processes.

It was offered to all of Indiana’s 92 counties, though only 64 applied, all of which are receiving grants. Other counties, Morales said, asked instead for his appearance or show of support at council or commissioner meetings.

He said there was a baseline amount of funding that was pegged per county, based on the numbers of voters, but the grants were also based on the costs of what each county was seeking.

The grants range from $1,080 to $123,501. They fill a range of needs, Morales said, from iPads used to register voters to signage.

St. Joseph County’s grant pays for the exact costs of the security and scanner, Rolfes said. The security measures didn’t fit into the Secretary of State’s funding categories of voting process and voting outreach and education. But, she said, Morales and the grant were “flexible” to make it happen.

In Marshall County, too

Morales also stopped in Plymouth on Friday to announce that the Marshall County Clerk’s Office will receive $21,777 through the grant.

“It couldn’t come at a better time,” County Clerk Jenny Bennitt said. “We really needed to replace our equipment.”

The grant, Bennitt said, will cover the full cost of several pieces of equipment. An encoder will assign a number to each voter, which, she said, is more efficient and accurate than doing it manually. High-speed printers will replace outdated ones, used for printing a tally at the start and end of a day of voting. Portable folding partitions will replace the cubicles of various sizes where voters fill their ballots at the clerk’s office during early voting. And she said a trolley will help to transport certain heavy, cumbersome pieces of voting equipment.

South Bend Tribune reporter Joseph Dits can be reached at 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: St. Joseph Marshall County get HAVA grant for elections Diego Morales