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Secretary of State requests $20 million SVRS modernization, seeks continued election cyber and outreach funding
Summary
The Secretary of State's office presented a budget request that would maintain voter-outreach and election-cybersecurity funding, increase university oversight funding and pursue a $20 million, four-year project to modernize the statewide voter registration and election-management system (SVRS).
Office representatives told the committee the secretary's budget seeks small general-fund increases for employer-costs, continued funding for voter outreach ($750,000) and the election cybersecurity program (about $3.18 million), and a capital request to modernize the statewide voter registration/election-management system (SVRS) at an estimated $20 million over four years.
The office said the SVRS began as a voter-registration database and has accreted election-management functions; it told senators the system is "overworked" and increasingly expensive to maintain. The proposed capital project would replace or modernize SVRS, roll in campaign finance and cybersecurity elements, and aim to have a new system ready by the next presidential election if funded and procured publicly.
Representatives defended continuing funding for existing election cybersecurity contracts, noting the program was created with a federal grant that has expired and that the state has since funded the multi-county contract. The office said it would begin sunsetting the current cybersecurity arrangement and work with counties to isolate the SVRS network to reduce ongoing costs.
They described VSTOP (the voting system technical oversight program at Ball State) as statutory, requested a 30% increase in VSTOP funding to match university overhead increases, and recommended statutory authority to permit procedural audits of election processes (a tool the office said more than a dozen other states use).
Ending: The office requested continued funding for voter outreach and cybersecurity, a modest increase for university-run technical oversight and capital funding for a multi-year SVRS modernization project; senators asked follow-up questions about cost, procurement and the relationship between federal grants and state funding.
