Seward County has agreed to obtain a new server for the Seward County Clerk’s office through the Nebraska Secretary of State’s Help America Vote Act election security grant funding.
At the board’s Jan. 20 meeting, Commissioners Darrell Zabrocki and Ken Schmieding voted in favor of getting the new server, while Commissioner Scott Pekarek voted against the move, saying he needed more information about what the server will do. Commission Chair Misty Ahmic and Commissioner Raegan Hain were absent.
Pekarek said the information provided to the commissioners was not enough for him to vote in favor of the server.
County Clerk Brandy Johnson said Seward County is one of only three counties that have not yet accepted the new server. The letter agreeing to obtaining the new server needed to be sent on Jan. 20.
Like the county’s voting equipment, the server will be listed as state-owned in its inventory even though it is housed in the courthouse, where it will also be inventoried, Johnson said.
Deputy Secretary of State for the Elections Division Wayne J. Bena said in a letter sent to Johnson and shared with the commissioners that the Help America Vote Act funding was provided by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Rani Taborek-Potter, public information officer for the Secretary of State’s office, said the server will enhance the county’s cybersecurity infrastructure and was funded by a HAVA Election Security Grant.
The server will not house the voter registration database or connect to vote tabulation equipment, she said.
The Nebraska Secretary of State’s website included information about the 2002 act that was intended to improve voter systems and access across the nation, creating mandatory standards for states to follow in election administration.
Those standards address programs and procedures for “provisional voting, voting information, upgraded voting equipment, statewide voter registration databases, voter identification procedures and administrative complaint procedures,” the website article said.
Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale appointed a 16-member Nebraska State Plan Commission in 2003 to implement the act’s requirements. The plan was adopted in 2004 and amended in 2009 and 2011.
As part of the program, Nebraska counties moved to a computerized statewide voter registration system and received new ballot tabulation equipment.
In a 2011 executive summary of the act, Gale said the 2003 Nebraska Unicameral addressed the issues of provisional voting, voter identification and voter registration form changes related to HAVA.
