SIDNEY — The Shelby County Board of Elections swore in its new Deputy Director Andrew Higgins during its meeting Monday morning.
Higgins has previously served as the director of the Miami County Board of Elections. His career has also included leadership roles at Airstream Corp. and Honda of America. He has also held technical and administrative positions at the Miami County Courts drug testing lab in Troy. Higgins lives with his family in the Anna area and is a member of the Heiland Post 446 of the American Legion. Higgins earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Political Science from Wright State University in 2015.
Higgins was sworn into his new position of deputy director by the Shelby County Board of Elections Director and notary Pamela Kerrigan. Higgins officially assumed his duties as deputy director during the Jan. 1o Shelby County Board of Elections meeting.
In other business, the board discussed the delivery and payment of the Election Systems and Software (ES&S) voting system that the county will be switching to in 2023. The new E-poll books are expected to be delivered to the board during the week of Jan. 16. It was also recently determined by the county commissioners that rather than including the cost of the ES&S systems in the board’s regular budget for 2023, the funding for the new systems will be coming from the Permanent Improvement Fund.
During the discussion of the new polling systems, board member Merill Asher raised a new discussion topic; what should the board do with the old VOTEC polling systems? The VOTEC systems previously used by Shelby County contain internal storage of data which creates an issue of disposal. Kerrigan will confer with the Secretary of State’s office to determine how to handle the disposal of the old systems while maintaining the privacy of voters.
The board also received, just before the meeting began, the 2023 budget for the Shelby County Board of Elections. The board must submit a potential budget each year to the county to review and revise. At a glance, the board members did not notice any major discrepancies between their requested budget and the finalized version received from the county on Monday morning. However, to allow the board members time to review the county’s budget, the discussion and approval of the 2023 budget was deferred until their next meeting on Feb. 6 at 9 a.m.
