Florida Officals: Voting equipment safe from internet hackers

The Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections (FSASE) issued an Open Letter to Florida Voters yesterday regarding the security of Florida's voting systems.

FSASE President Chris H. Chambless, said, "We'd like to reaffirm to Florida voters that the security of our voting systems is always a top priority for election professionals across the State of Florida, and recent enhancements to Florida voting systems have dramatically reduced exposures to any possible 'hacking' of elections. At the core of the security of Florida voting systems is the fact that we are a paper ballot state, which means that we can always refer to the paper ballot in the event of a disruption (with the exception of touchscreens for voters with disabilities). It is also important to understand that electronic voting systems are not Internet-based and do not connect to each other online."

Bill Cowles, Orange County Supervisor of Elections issued this statement; " I’m in full agreement with the information provided by the President Chambless. Orange County’s voting system is 100% paper-based. This includes our ADA voting equipment. We do not have any DRE’s (touch screens). The Logic and Accuracy (L&A)Test of the voting equipment, as required by law, to be used for the August 30^th Election will be held on Wednesday, August 10^th at 9 AM here at the Orange County Elections Office. The test will be overseen by the County Canvassing Board which includes County Judge Jeanette Bigney, County Commissioner Bryan Nelson and myself. The L&A Test is open to the public."

The following excerpts from the letter emphasize the steps being taken to ensure the integrity of Florida's voting systems:

• "Prior to each election, a public Logic and Accuracy test is conducted of each voting tabulator and tabulation system to ensure that they are working and tabulating properly."
• "Precinct tabulated results are transmitted to our office in brief encrypted burst. Outside attackers would need to overcome multiple layers of encryption which if successful, would result in corrupting, slowing or stopping the transmission of unofficial results to our office."
• "The final accumulations that are transmitted to the State as our unofficial results are then written to yet another memory device that are finally uploaded and transmitted to the Division of Elections on another completely separate system and network via a secure upload system which makes the likelihood that an outside attacker to subvert this process even more remote."
• "The final step to securing the voting process is the fact that within a week of the election, a precinct by precinct review is performed where the precinct totals tape is compared to the unofficial results transmitted on election night to verify a match and any deviations are researched and noted. Once this is completed the official result is reported."

Use this link to read the entire Open Letter to Florida Voters.