XENIA — The Secretary of State’s Office is ordering, and funding, Greene County Board of Elections to check on its cyber-security ahead of the next election.

The office has budgeted at least $30,000 for each of the 88 counties to offset costs of reviewing their board’s IT environment and mitigating any vulnerabilities. Paperwork passed through the hands of the county commissioners July 19 when they authorized the BOE to apply for the Secretary of State’s Office’s grant.

County Administrator Brandon Huddleson called the directive a “vulnerability assessment.”

”It’s a cyber-security grant — so they are to test all of their systems, hire somebody to do this from outside, and basically try to poke holes in the system, find out where they are and fix it,” he said.

The funded mandate is a formality, BOE Director Llyn McCoy explained, that all counties are using to bolster cyber-security.

“Our IT department under the auditor’s office is so proactive we are in pretty good shape,” McCoy said.

She explained that none of the election equipment is ever attached to the internet and there are no modems in the machines even when new ones are added.

“The county has just been so proactive,” she said. “The secretary of state has asked us to do this. The county is going to work with a provider just to make sure we are doing everything we need to do.”

Huddleson said he was appreciative the directive came with funding.

“That makes it a lot easier and the commissioners completely agree with flushing out our IT system to make sure our elections are completely secure,” he said.