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Somebody has some explaining to do
Wednesday, Nov 9, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller * Yesterday, we discussed the claim by Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons that “repeated D-DOS attacks” were to blame for slow voting issues in the county. Clerk Ammons said the attacks had been happening for a month and were part of a “strategic and coordinated effort to undermine and destabilize our democratic process.” But was there an attack? Some commenters were initially skeptical. As it turns out, an official with CISA, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the clerk’s own vendor say nothing had been reported. Sam Sabin is an Axios cybersecurity reporter…
That tweet was published more than 2 hours after the county clerk posted a statement on Facebook about the claimed attack. Also, you endure a month-long, sustained DDoS attack and don’t report it and the vendor doesn’t know anything? I say this every couple of years, but I truly believe we need to get all county clerks out of the business of running elections.
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- Nick - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 10:37 am:
It bears repeating that I think Ammons had to be literally chastised by the state in 2020 for getting basic election procedure wrong.
And now this stuff about ‘DDoS attacks.’
- DuPage - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 10:55 am:
“Solar winds” was on many government computers for a long time without being noticed. Just because “we didn’t see anything” does not prove one way or the other. However, that county clerk should explain how their election equipment could be attacked if it was not hooked up to the internet. Why would it have been hooked up to the internet?
- Publius - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 10:55 am:
We keep running things like it is the 19th century. We need to fully reorganize local government to a modern model with professional staff.
- Shytown - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:09 am:
Is it a shock or surprise that Aaron Ammons would say this?
- hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:32 am:
As an outsider, I do not understand why Champaign County Dems continue to put up with the Ammons family running so much. Are they ever in the news for something that is not embarrassing?
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:35 am:
This is unacceptable beyond mere honesty.
This is how conspiracy theorists feel empowered and emboldened to continue any thought that America doesn’t run fair and free elections… because we don’t know what we didn’t know a month ago.
It’s infuriating
- jim - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:45 am:
Hey, you AA critics. He got re-elected, and he’ll continue to do as he pleases. for those who don’t like it, that’s too bad.
- ITENGINEER - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:48 am:
@DuPage CISA/the vendor asolutely would see activity during a DDos atack the whole purpose is to flood certain ports with too much traffic for the server to handle. The supply side injection done to SolarWinds could be hard to detect if the clerk wasnt doing their due diligence and used the information provided by the cybersecurity community to find and sanitize.
- Near West Side - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:53 am:
Lots of county clerks do a great job, Ammons…..not so much.
- twowaystreet - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 11:54 am:
==He got re-elected, and he’ll continue to do as he pleases. for those who don’t like it, that’s too bad.==
That’s a winning argument. /s Elected officials don’t get to do as they please, whether they win an election for President or County Clerk.
- Lakefront - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:07 pm:
Genuine question - who runs the elections if the County Clerks don’t? State Board of Elections?
- Deputy Sheriff - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:14 pm:
Rich — why would you want to label all county clerks as unable to run elections when the majority have no trouble? Ammons is the problem, not everyone else. Demand accountability from him, don’t throw all the rest of the clerks in the same basket. Be better.
- Central Illinois Centrist - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:21 pm:
==who runs elections if county clerks don’t?
Establish nonpartisan Election Commission. Appoint commission members by Judges.
Some would say there is still partisanship there but I think would be better.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:31 pm:
===when the majority have no trouble===
lol
LOLOL
You’re joking, right?
- Boris - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:33 pm:
I guess. How in the world can a DDOS attack be successful when a $20k security appliance/device can protect against such attacks. Plus do a whole lot more. This is pretty straight forward stuff in 2022.
- Seven Constanza - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:48 pm:
=He got re-elected, and he’ll continue to do as he pleases. for those who don’t like it, that’s too bad.=
That is very apparent to those of us that have had to deal with either of Carol or Aaron.
- Lagertha's Shield - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 12:56 pm:
Last year our county clerk proclaimed that a local ballot measure had passed when it did not. I had to explain to the clerk that the measure had to pass in each township, and that since there was a tie in one township, the measure did not pass. The clerk had no clue that was the law. It was truly a situation where one vote in one township determined the outcome.
- jim - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 1:02 pm:
That’s a winning argument. /s Elected officials don’t get to do as they please, whether they win an election for President or County Clerk.
THAT’S WHAT YOU SAY, AA SAYS DIFFERENT
- MisterJayEm - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 1:56 pm:
“I truly believe we need to get all county clerks out of the business of running elections.”
Curiously, DuPage County vastly improved their system by eliminating the county’s election commission and returning its duties to the clerk’s office.
Not only do we no longer see many of the problems that we once had, DuPage voters can now cast their ballots at any polling place in the county (after a voter checks in, a bespoke ballot is then custom printed for them on the spot).
Huzzah, Jean Kaczmarek‼
– MrJM
- ISU Pundit - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 6:41 pm:
Aaron Ammons is incompetent as they get. Remember the last election when he started counting votes early?…..
- TooManyJens - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 6:55 pm:
It was dumb to claim there was a DDoS attack if he couldn’t actually produce evidence of it. Sadly, I’m not surprised by it.
That said, I still don’t understand what the problem yesterday was. At least where I was working, everything else was fine but we kept losing the connection to the Platinum service, which is where we were pulling the pollbook information from (CC has “vote everywhere,” which required a networked pollbook). One outage was for about 25 minutes and we had many, MANY shorter ones over the course of the day. So how did that come about? Is someone in the Clerk’s office responsible for running and maintaining that server, or is it Platinum? I have no idea.
- Deputy Sheriff - Wednesday, Nov 9, 22 @ 10:11 pm:
Rich — what is your solution if taken away from the clerk’s? Another bureaucratic state agency to conduct elections? Again diminishing local elected officials roles in our government?