State officials deny assessment, say they are working to prevent voting interference

23rd April 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer

The Institute for Southern Studies compiled research on states’ election security and concluded that many states, including Louisiana, urgently need to improve.

The recommendation follows months of research on the part of federal and state lawmakers as well as voting security experts, who began assessing the vulnerability of election procedures after Department of Homeland Security officials notified 21 states that Russian hackers had attempted to infiltrate their election systems during the 2016 presidential election. In Illinois, hackers successfully accessed voter registration information for tens of thousands of voters.

Meg Casper Sunstrom, Press Secretary for Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, disagrees with the Institute’s assessment.

“Louisiana was not one of the 21 states identified (as targeted by hackers) during the 2016 Election Cycle. We follow all best practices/procedures in terms of securing our voting machines in order to ensure they are not vulnerable, including keeping our software up to date, not having anyone but our staff repair or program our machines and having a strict chain of custody protocol which includes tamper- proof seals for each and every machine. Finally, Louisiana both pre- and post-tests every single voting machine before and after every election to ensure they are working properly. Louisiana has never had an election overturned due to machine counts in our history,” she said in an emailed statement.

The Institute’s index includes extensive research from the Center for American Progress, which gave Louisiana a “D” grade for its voting security in an election security report released in February 2018, based in part on the state’s continued use of paperless electronic voting machines. Election security experts recommend that states use machines that create ballots as votes are cast, which can be counted in a post-election audit to detect potential manipulation of votes.

The report also estimated that the state’s voter registration system is at least ten years old, making it more vulnerable to hacking (although the system does receive routine cybersecurity updates and maintenance). Louisiana also allows absentee voters to return ballots electronically, which the Center for American Progress describes as “notoriously insecure.”

Louisiana is one of five states that lacks a paper trail for votes, and there are nine states that use some combination of paper ballots and paperless machines. Twenty-six states, including Louisiana, require no post-election audit to ensure that voting machines accurately record and count votes, according to the website Verified Voting.

Louisiana officials have made efforts to respond to Russian interference in other states and prevent manipulation of 2018 election results.

“Since 2016, Louisiana has implemented all of the suggested protections against future cyber attacks including implementing two-factor authentication for passwords, purchasing new laptops for election night counts, participating in Department of Homeland Security audits and scans, hardening access to election servers and data and issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the statewide purchase of new voting machines. These machines will have a voter-verified paper ballot component that can be audited post-election if necessary,” Casper Sunstrom said.

Upgrades to election systems are expensive, especially replacing voting machines, but recently passed legislation will provide federal funding to states. Congress approved $380 million for improving election security in an omnibus spending bill passed in March. Funding goes to the Election Assistance Commission, who distributes it to states within 45 days.

Senators from several states have also co-sponsored a bill, called the Secure Elections Act, that would provide additional funding, including grants to particularly vulnerable local jurisdictions. Senators recently spoke to state officials, including Louisiana Secretary of State Schedler, on how to best bolster coordination between federal and state officials, and continue to tweak the legislation.

While the Center for American Progress gave Louisiana a “D” grade, the organization’s report also notes that the state’s voting security would be “greatly improved” following the installation of new, more secure, voting machines, something the state has in the works with its recent RFP.

“We look forward to continuing to follow best practices so we can maintain the trust we’ve established with the public for many years,” Casper Sunstrom said.

This article originally published in the April 23, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.