☑ Experienced ☑ Dedicated ☑ Conservative
Clerk Duties
In Idaho, the Clerk's Office holds one of the most diverse roles in county government. The Clerk serves as the chief budget officer (county auditor), chief elections officer, clerk of the district court, county recorder, and clerk to the board of county commissioners, among other responsibilities. County clerks in Idaho are truly like Swiss Army knives—versatile and essential to county operations.
The Kootenai County Clerk’s Office oversees five departments — Auditor, District Court, Elections, Recorder, and County Assistance — and is comprised of 106 employees.
Kootenai County Clerk Departments
Elections
Elections are constantly evolving and our Elections team has adapted to meet the challenges under my direction. Since 2013, Kootenai County has seen almost a 39% increase in registered voters. While the Elections Department is one of the Clerk’s smallest departments by staff size, it has maintained the same number of employees since 2013. The Elections Office has increased efficiency while managing more contested races, conducting elections for 52 taxing districts, navigating increased complexity in elections and election laws, and experiencing higher turnout. The department recruits and trains between 400 and 525 poll workers to staff 74 precincts on Election Day.
As the basis of our constitutional republic, election security will continue to remain one of the highest priorities of the Clerk's Division. As Clerk, I have spearheaded efforts to improve security and election processes in our county of over 110,000 registered voters. We will continue to live-stream on the County website so citizens can watch the opening of absentee ballots, ballot counting, uploading of results, and the location where voted ballots are secured and stored. In 2024, we also installed a dedicated camera over the Elections Office absentee drop slot, where ballots are deposited and secured into a locked box inside the Elections building—this is the only drop location for absentee ballots in the County.
How Elections are Required by Law to be Run in Idaho
☑ All Idaho counties conduct voting on paper ballots.
☑ Proof of acceptable ID and proof of residence must be provided at the time of registration or prior to casting a ballot. On Election Day, A paper registration form must be filled out and reviewed for a voter to register or re-register before a poll worker can enter and process the voter in the poll book.
☑ In Idaho, voters must request and complete an absentee ballot application each new election year to receive an absentee ballot. When absentee ballots are returned to the Elections Office, each signature on the return envelope is verified with a human eye and matched against the voter registration signature on file. If the signature does not match the voter registration signature on file, the voter is contacted and asked to come to the Elections Office, present an acceptable ID, and sign in front of an elections worker before the ballot is accepted.
☑ Idaho has laws against ballot harvesting (Idaho Code 18-2324).
☑ Idaho Code 34-2410(3) states: No vote tally system shall be connected to the internet at any time, and no vote tally system shall receive or transmit data through wireless communications.
☑ Idaho Code 34-2426 Public Logic and Accuracy Tests. In accordance with Idaho law, our county conducts public and internal Logic and Accuracy tests before every election. These tests prove to the public that our voting tally systems are reading and counting paper ballots with 100% accuracy. The Elections Office is required to test every contest for every precinct and ballot style—even write-in votes, undervotes and overvotes—to ensure the system’s expected results match the actual tally. In the November 2024 Elections, we tested over 1300 paper ballots.
Since 2022, the Secretary of State is required to conducted audits of counties statewide for the May Primary and November General Elections. In 2022, Kootenai County was selected for the audit of the May and November Elections. Random precincts were drawn from the Secretary of State’s Office for each audit, and over 2100 ballots were audited in the May Primary and over 2400 ballots were audited in the November Election. The results of the hand tally audit of ballots cast in Kootenai County matched exactly the tabulation results reported in both elections.
Elections and election laws continue to evolve, and the Elections Office has consistently adapted to these changes with excellence. Election security, rigorous testing, thorough training, and maintaining a strict chain of custody over ballots and election equipment will continue to be among our highest priorities.
Auditor
Kootenai County has an outstanding team in the Auditor’s Office, led by the Finance Director and Deputy Finance Director. The Office provides a wide range of financial services to the County, including accounting and reporting, budgeting, payroll, accounts payable and receivable, grants accounting, taxing district accounting, as well as fixed asset and lease accounting. I will continue to work closely with the Auditor’s team to identify opportunities to automate tasks and achieve greater efficiency. To further support these efforts, we will soon begin collaborating with a consultant to assess the County’s needs for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
One of my primary goals over the years has been to continually improve the County budget process, with a particular focus on enhancing the analysis of annual revenue projections. The Auditor’s Office looks at a three-year trend of revenues and expenses for each County Department, along with monthly reports of sales tax and revenue sharing from the State Tax Commission. The Auditor’s Office, in partnership with the Board of County Commissioners, has continued to streamline the budget process each year.
District Court
Growth continues to increase demand for court services. The Clerk’s Office has 75 employees in District Court across the Civil, Criminal, Compliance, and the Records Departments, as well as judicial assistants and judicial floats, all of whom work closely with our five district court judges and nine magistrates. My goal is to continue collaborating with the District Court Director, District Court Manager and District Court employees, alongside the Administrative District Judge and Trial Court Administrator, to ensure the court operates efficiently.
Recording
The Recorder’s Office requires no funding from Kootenai County taxpayers. The cost of Office’s operations is fully fee-supported. In FY25, the Recorder’s Office generated $1,064,475 in revenue from passport, marriage license, and liquor license issuances, as well as from the recording of real property titles. All revenue that exceeds operational costs is used to offset other County expenses. Our ongoing goal is to continue providing excellent customer service and increase FY26 revenues.
County Assistance
In 2022, the County Assistance program changed due to new legislation. Prior to 2022, the program provided interest-free loans to help pay medical costs for those in need, and the County served as the payor of last resort for citizens without any other resources through an application process. With the 2022 law changes, County Assistance now provides only indigent cremation payments and limited non-medical assistance through a qualifying application process. We continue to process daily payments on outstanding zero-interest medical loans. In 2022, this department had four employees; now, with only one employee, it collected $260,886 in revenue for FY25 and is not property tax-supported. Our goal is for this department to continue to be self-sufficient.