• Candidate Questionnaire — Kurt Croix
  • Highest grade completed | Present employer
  • Relevant political or work experience
  • Why are you running for Ray County Clerk?
  • Biographical information
  • What do you see as the biggest responsibility of the Ray County Clerk’s Office, and what experience has prepared you for that role?
  • How would you approach maintaining transparency and public access to county records and information?
  • Elections are one of the clerk office’s most visible responsibiliies. What steps would you take to help maintain voter confidence and communicate clearly with the public during elections?
  • Are there any changes or improvements you would like to see within the Ray County Clerk’s Office? If so, what would they be and why?
  • The county clerk works closely with commissioners, department heads and the public on a daily basis. How would you approach communication and collaboration in the position?

§Candidate Questionnaire — Kurt Croix

• Name: Kurt Croix
• Age: 33
• Address: Rayville

§Highest grade completed | Present employer

• I graduated with Honors from Mizzou with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Minor in Mathematics.
• Present employer: Senior Software Engineer at a cyber security company.

§Relevant political or work experience

• Financial: Built a public dashboard transforming the 327-page 2025 county budget into an interactive dashboard ( https://tinyurl.com/n4pp3syx). Will implement Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to automate receipt data extraction and eliminate manual errors.
• Administrative: Daily work managing massive, highly complex systems as a software engineer at a major cybersecurity firm; will bring precise project management, system organization, and rigorous documentation to the Clerk’s administrative duties.
• Legal: Well-versed in the Missouri Sunshine Law and professional regulatory compliance from industry experience.

§Why are you running for Ray County Clerk?

• I am running to change a culture of stonewalled Sunshine requests and evasive answers; I will implement three key transparency improvements:
• Meeting Transcription: Automated workflow that transcribes, summarizes, and publishes commissioners’ meetings as an un-editable podcast so working citizens can stay informed ( https://kurt-croix.github.io/podstr/).
• Open & Searchable Records: Built a searchable file explorer to replace unsearchable files, allowing citizens to search county records ( https://tinyurl.com/5dczst7c).
• Digital-First Presence: I will establish an online bulletin board so public notices are accessible from any phone or computer.

§Biographical information

• Christian; husband to Ky; father of twins; software engineer; regenerative farmer.
• Lived in Ray County since 2022.
• Currently employed as a Senior Software Engineer.

§What do you see as the biggest responsibility of the Ray County Clerk’s Office, and what experience has prepared you for that role?

• Record keeping and Sunshine Requests. By default, ALL data produced by county government belongs to the public; official communications or documents generated by elected or appointed officials (e.g., Planning & Zoning or LERF boards) should be systematically open.
• To protect sensitive data, will implement filtering software that scans documents for legally confidential information before publication.
• While full transition to transparent, digital infrastructure may take time, I possess the IT expertise to work with the county technology department to deliver this incrementally. (See https://tinyurl.com/3e63dkyt for more details.)

§How would you approach maintaining transparency and public access to county records and information?

• I will implement modern data protocols so open county records are secure, permanently archived, and easily auditable. I will utilize secure, open-source publishing protocols, Nostr and Blossom, to apply unalterable digital signatures to every document; any post-publication tampering is instantly flagged.
• For closed/confidential records: encrypt files locally, restrict access to authorized personnel only, and back up to high-durability, secure cloud storage with off-site redundancy.
• Demo: https://tinyurl.com/5dczst7c

§Elections are one of the clerk office’s most visible responsibiliies. What steps would you take to help maintain voter confidence and communicate clearly with the public during elections?

• I observed our local election process during the April election. The mechanics are straightforward and secure and I do not intend to disrupt the core processes that work well.
• My priority for maintaining voter confidence is absolute transparency and communication. I will be fully accessible to any citizen with questions or concerns about election integrity and am open to practical, secure adjustments based on public feedback to ensure everyone feels confident in their vote. I would publicize when elections are occuring more.

§Are there any changes or improvements you would like to see within the Ray County Clerk’s Office? If so, what would they be and why?

• In addition to the changes I’ve already presented, I would like to end the adversarial relationship the current administration has with the public. To achieve this, I will:
• Respond to citizens’ Sunshine requests with all requested information instead of a subset.
• Explore cost-neutral electronic payments for Sunshine requests.
• Create an as-close-to-real-time expenditure dashboard.
• Produce a monthly “red-flag” report highlighting any department trending more than 5% over projected spending.
• Treat every day as if the State Auditor is coming tomorrow.

§The county clerk works closely with commissioners, department heads and the public on a daily basis. How would you approach communication and collaboration in the position?

• I view the Clerk’s role as inherently collaborative with the County Commission. Vital to that collaboration is ensuring strict Sunshine Law compliance and proper record-keeping to protect the county from liability.
• At the same time, as an independently elected official, primary accountability is to the voters. Transparency must always be the top priority. To best serve both the public and the Commission, I believe maintaining clear, objective, and professional communication focused strictly on county business to ensure transparency, prevent misunderstandings, and foster trust.