California elections officials are confident that the state’s voter data and election technology is secure enough to withstand cyber attacks such as those Russian hackers recently carried out against Arizona and Illinois. “We are agile and always evaluating and adapting our security posture to protect the confidentiality of voter data and to protect the integrity of our elections,” said Sam Mahood, a spokesman for California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. Mahood declined to provide specifics, but said there is no evidence of a successful hack of the state’s systems. “In California, voting systems – the equipment that you’ll see at polling places – cannot be connected to the Internet at any time,” Mahood said in an emailed statement. “All electronic voting systems must have a paper trail that can be audited.”
Mahood added that California “has one of the most strenuous voting system testing and certification programs in the country.”
Counties must “follow specific procedures for programming, deployment, and use of voting equipment,” he said. “In addition, California elections officials are required to conduct a manual tally of 1 percent of the precincts as part of the official canvass of election results as a safeguard to ensure votes were accurately read and tallied.”
Full Article: After recent national attacks, is California’s election system hacker-proof? – Press Enterprise.