Cape Girardeau County applies for election security grant

With Tuesday's primary now in the books, Cape Girardeau County is applying for a federally funded election security grant authorized through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

County Clerk Kara Clark Summers, who has supervised the county's elections since 2007, told the county commission Thursday $10,000 is available for Cape County -- with no local match required.

The HAVA money for local jurisdictions, she said, is a federal "pass-through" obtained through the office of Missouri Secretary of State John R. "Jay" Ashcroft.

Ashcroft's office said the state first obtained $7.2 million in HAVA funds in 2018 -- money local election authorities can obtain through application "to improve both physical security and cyber security to further enhance the integrity of Missouri's election system," according to Ashcroft.

Summers told commissioners Paul Koeper and Charlie Herbst once the HAVA funds are received, the county has until December 2023 to use them.

Election security

According to the Secretary of State's website, sos.mo.gov/elections/security, among the election security measures already in place in Missouri:

• Voting machines are not connected to the Internet, so they can't be hacked online.
• Each of 116 election jurisdictions in the state has its own voting system, meaning there is no single voting system nor single point of access.
• Every single voting machine is required to produce a paper audit trail.
• When absentee ballots are processed, they are counted by a bipartisan team.
• Voting machines are publicly tested both before and after election day.
• Once checked for accuracy, equipment is locked and sealed to prohibit tampering on election day.
• All voting machines are required to give voters a second chance to ensure their ballots are marked correctly.
• Election results are audited by local officials before any results are certified. (In Cape Girardeau County, a verification board made up of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats was to have met Thursday and Friday to make Tuesday's unofficial results final.)