Here & Now

Cautious Confidence In Election Security

Shawn Johnson:

In this week’s look ahead, security experts are warning that they have proof voting systems can be hacked. As the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism discovered, security analysts are most concerned about close elections because you don’t need to hack all the systems around the state, but altering a few could change the outcome. We spoke to county clerk who takes election security very seriously and thinks our system should be audited, if only to prove that everything is working properly.

Lisa Tollefson:

When we open the polls, it actually prints out a zero tape. And that zero tape is confirming that the results on this machine are zero at the beginning of the election day. Many people don’t understand the multiple layers of security there are in elections. The biggest issue that we have seen, we did the presidential recount in 2016 and the biggest thing we found were missed write-ins, human error. So with the machines, the machines were really, really accurate. It was the human error. I actually do the coding for our county, but they can’t link into my system and see what I’ve done because it’s not connected anywhere. It’s kept separate. There’s usually a security seal that’s put on here. So you can see how this says void. The Wisconsin Election Commission does audits of 100 different reporting units after the general election. And they’re randomly choosing those locations to have those. We all follow a lot of the same parameters that we need to to secure our elections. I may just look at the audits differently. What I’m looking for is anomalies that don’t make sense to me. I want to check it out further to make sure there’s not something missing. Usually it’s fine. And usually the inspector statements will explain it. Anything can be hacked as long as there’s enough time and enough resources. When we seal these bags, you can see if someone broke into them, with multiple layers, because they say void. It lowers that a tremendous amount. There are times when we will open those bags at the count, at our board of canvas and we’ll look at them to see if there’s anything. Even if it proves that our system is working.

Shawn Johnson:

Wisconsin has post-election audits but they only verify if the equipment functioned properly. Once again, National Intelligence says that’s not enough. Only 100 of Wisconsin’s 3600 are randomly selected for audits. In a recent interview with the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Megan Wolfe, interim administrator for the Wisconsin Election Commission, said that her staff recently traveled to Colorado where post-election audits are mandatory and said that Wisconsin is thinking of implementing a similar framework under existing law. Election audits will be on the agenda for the commission’s September meeting. For the upcoming election, you can find out about all the information on the races, the candidates and the election results at WisconsinVote.org. It’s a joint partnership between Wisconsin Public Television and Radio and your source for election news. For all of your election day questions, get answers at WisconsinVote.org.