Recorder candidates clash on digitization plans; both promise more online access

At the TV3 forum, Republican candidates for Fayette County recorder, incumbent Lisa Mays Witt and challenger Jane Downer, focused their discussion on digitizing land records, protecting sensitive information and making documents accessible to the public.

Witt described in-house work already completed with a BookEye scanner and said US Imaging handled a large deed-scanning contract; she said preservation work has used the records perpetuation fund and that in-house efforts saved "over a $110,000" when compared with external contracting. She said confidential military records remain accessible only in person and described an ID security protection fee that funds redaction of Social Security numbers.

Downer, who identified herself as the county auditor since 2016, said she favored using in-house employees for preservation where practical to control costs and expedite indexing so that records become searchable on Docs Pop. She stressed the importance of careful stewardship of perpetuation funds and of making digitized materials available to the public.

Both candidates said technology should improve access while protecting privacy; Downer cited redaction of Social Security numbers as mandatory and Witt noted experiments with AI-assisted indexing to speed availability. On customer service, candidates discussed keeping offices responsive to searchers and making more records discoverable online.

Each candidate gave a closing asking voters to consider their records-preservation plans ahead of the May 5 primary.