Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales stopped in the Kosciusko County Clerk’s Office Friday to present $28,000 in Federal Help America Vote Act grant dollars for election improvement efforts.
He also offered the office and its staff a helping of thanks for all they do.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. You all are the backbones of our elections. Without you, we can not run smooth elections. So your roles are very important, so thank you,” Morales said.
Clerk Ann Torpy explained the grant dollars will be used to produce some voter education videos with DreamOn Studios.
“The majority of it is to educate voters on how they can receive a ballot and cast a ballot in Kosciusko County,” she said. “Some of them are hesitant on voting by mail, so we want to kind of guide them through that process and how easy it is and how easy as far as it’s not intimidating.”
The videos also will discuss vote centers, how they work and their purpose, as well as when they can vote, vote early or vote through the mail. The videos will also explain the state’s different ways a person can register to vote.

    Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales (L) speaks Friday to Clerk of the Circuit Court Ann Torpy (C) and Chief Deputy Melissa Boggs (R) about the upcoming election before presenting the clerk’s office with a $28,000 grant for election improvement efforts. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Currently, three total videos with DreamOn have been discussed. There is no timeline as to when the videos will be completed and posted, but Torpy said she’s meeting with DreamOn next week for preproduction and then will move forward from there.
After touring all 92 Indiana counties and listening to their county clerks’ concerns last year, one of the things Morales said he and his staff decided to do to help the counties was to get some federal grant dollars for them. All 92 counties were invited to submit proposals for the funds for what they needed in preparation for the 2024 election, with 64 applying and receiving grants.
“Every county has different needs. Some of them applied for different reasons, different purposes,” he said. All the applications were reviewed by his office and they tried to give each county that applied as much of the funding as they requested. While some counties applied for just a few thousand, some requested over $100,000.
“Most of them got what they requested, with the exception of a couple things of what the HAVA requirements needed, because, since it was a federal grant that we applied for, so we need to abide by those policies that they have, too,” Morales said.
Another exception was if a county wanted to roll a program out that the state already has in place, like a texting initiative.
“Those are the only differences, but most counties got pretty much everything they requested,” he said.
While Kosciusko County is planning voter information videos, other counties wanted the funds for voter outreach, signage, security cameras, iPads to register Hoosiers to vote and poll workers training and pay.
Delivery of the grant checks began Jan. 2. By Friday, over 50 Indiana counties had received grant checks. By next week, Morales said he would be about done visiting the counties, with one county receiving their money in February.
Being a presidential election year, voter turnout is expected to be strong. Morales said they’re always ready for an election.
“That is why right now, in order to be even more ready, in order to make sure that we can lead the way and start showing our results as soon as we close the polls, these tools and resources are so important so that they can be even more ready. And I’m proud to tell you that this last year, all of the county clerks are doing a good job. I’m just honored to be working alongside them. I believe, here in Indiana, we’re running great elections, but we’re going to take this to the next level because I want Indiana to be a model when it comes to elections for the nation,” Morales concluded.