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Illinois

* AP…

Illinois officials assured voters Tuesday that their Nov. 6 tallies “will be securely counted” after a data breach that’s part of the Justice Department’s investigation of Russian meddling in U.S. elections.

Board of Elections Chairman William Cadigan and a group of state and local officials — including Illinois National Guard leaders — said in Chicago that beefed-up measures to monitor and spot cybersecurity risks will ensure a fair and free election.

“We’re as prepared as we ought to be right now, given the information we have,” Cadigan said. “People should get out and vote because your vote is going to count and at the end of the day, we believe it’s going to be securely counted.”

The board hired three cybersecurity experts to watch elections and voter-data systems for irregularities, Cadigan said, including one housed at the Illinois State Police Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center. Local elections administrators have undergone rigorous training and the National Guard is on call for emergencies.

* ABC 7…

On Election Day next month in Illinois, hundreds of National Guard troopers will be standing by for action.

If needed, they won’t depend on rifles and bayonets but will be armed with laptops and IT expertise.

The unprecedented move comes after cyber attackers, believed to be Russians, hacked the official Illinois voter database before the 2016 presidential election.

“We can have a guardsman-expert dispatched within an hour to anywhere in Illinois. We’ll have boots on the ground in whatever county, in whatever election authority, is affected within an hour,” said Chuck Scholz, a board member of the Illinois State Board of Elections.

* WGN TV…,

Election officials said they have installed greater firewall protections for voter records and election results, thorough and detailed cyber training for clerks and election judges and are working with national agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and now for the first time in Illinois election history—the National Guard.

The Department of Homeland Security has secured about $13 million that will go toward Illinois voting security programs to ensure the system isn’t hacked again.

* Tribune…

Officials said Illinois keeps a paper record of every ballot cast, ensuring an accurate final tally once the results are certified weeks after Election Day even if hackers compromise voting systems.

“Voters here should feel confident in the fundamentals,” Cook County Clerk Director of Elections Noah Praetz said. “Because in Illinois, we can ensure that every legal voter can vote, and we can deliver results that are trusted and true.”

NBC News this week reported that a federal Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment warned of a “growing volume of cyber activity targeting election infrastructure in 2018.”

That NBC News report is here.

* But…

Even with additional training, some counties are finding it difficult to implement security upgrades without more resources, according to NBC 5’s anonymous survey.

“Our county does not have the money,” one respondent wrote.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 9:55 am

Comments

== including one housed at the Illinois State Police Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center. ==

Hmm. If that person is former ISP who retired and went private, I may know them. The petson I’m thnking of has been dealing with cyber security issues for 20 years or so.

Comment by RNUG Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 10:00 am
Only one way there’ll be a red wave and that’s from Moscow.

Comment by Precinct Captain Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 10:01 am
I am personally associated with one of the new Cyber Security people. He is one of the best I have ever seen. If there is a way to protect the election, he knows how to do it.

Comment by Retired Educator Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 10:12 am
Just watch Dupage. They have had Election Day voter tabulation problems for decades. Well documented over and over again. But I’m sure the “simple errors” never impacted any elections.
Oh and thankfully my polling place changed again for the 4th time in the past 8 years.

Comment by DuPage Bard Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 10:13 am
If you want an honest election, move to Kansas.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 11:24 am
“Even with additional training, some counties are finding it difficult to implement security upgrades without more resources, according to NBC 5’s anonymous survey.” The real dangers of voter suppression and vote tampering are not so much in Cook County, where you see the press watching what public officials are doing, but in corrupt rural counties like Whiteside, where there is no functioning party system to provide a check and balance on the insider good old boys that run everything.

Example: “Repbulican” Whiteside county Sheriff Kelly Wilhelmi ran against “Democrat” candidate John Booker in 2010, but now Wilhelmi is “retiring” to grease the skids and endorsing former opponent and Democrat Booker for Sheriff! The Invisible Empire is not even hidden in these corrupt little fiefdoms. Where’s the AG and cybersecurity in counties outside Cook?

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 11:29 am
Get elections off the internet. It’s that simple.

(Recently, there was a forum discussing voting with phones. Was that for real? How can people be that naive?)

Comment by cdog Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 11:41 am
Are we wishing we had our punch ballots back? Kind of pegging the irony meter here.

Comment by Fav Human Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 11:49 am
Because Cadigan?

Comment by Contract Disputin' Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 11:53 am
Who did they hire? Hopefully not the same company hired to hack the system

Comment by Publius Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 12:08 pm
=Get elections off the internet. It’s that simple.=

It’s not that simple. First of all, although some states have some internet voting, it’s pretty much confined to the military and people living overseas. So for the most part, our elections aren’t *on* the Internet.

Second, well, read this from the New York Times Magazine a couple of weeks ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/magazine/election-security-crisis-midterms.html?

Comment by JoanP Wednesday, Oct 17, 18 @ 3:24 pm