In late 2022, Macoupin County was selected as one of ten nationwide Centers for Election Excellence by the US Alliance for Election Excellence. As part of that distinction, we did receive a grant of $500,000. This was a set amount based off the number of registered voters in our county. The County can spend that money on the following items
1) Key Physical Components: Equipment and materials, facilities, and records, including voting locations, technical facilities, storage facilities, processing facilities, administrative facilities, and voting hardware;
2) Key Technological Components: Hardware and software components critical to supporting the election security mission, including computers, servers, databases, and other lT systems and assets used in election administration activities;
3) Key Human Components: Personnel with specialized training, certification, knowledge, skills, authorities, or roles whose absence could cause undesirable consequences or hamper the election security mission, including strategic, operational, and temporary/seasonal support positions.
What will Macoupin County spend this money on specifically?
My priority is to spend this money on larger, one-time expenses that would not normally be able to be handled by the County’s budget. Examples include additional space for election events such as early voting or judges training, improved secure storage areas for the county’s voting machines, upgrading our voter registration and election management software for the first time since 1999. We will not use any of the grant money on personnel costs for county employees. There is the possibility of paying vendors for their time such as our local IT vendor for their work on running a new internet connection or paying an individual for scanning of records as examples.