In November, Kentuckians in 22 counties will cast their votes on electronic voting machines that were broken into in less than two days at the annual DEFCON hackers conference last year. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said the state Board of Elections is coordinating with county officials to build hacker-proof voting systems, making use of nearly $6 million it received from Washington D.C. in March when Congress authorized a $380 million state grant program for election security following concerns about election fraud in the 2016 election. The Kentucky Board of Elections set aside the majority of that money — $4.6 million — to upgrade electronic voting machines across Kentucky to paper-trail machines, which experts say are less susceptible to hacking and can be audited to detect fraud. Grimes said she hopes to have the updated equipment in place in time for the 2020 election.
“This is not something that we can continue to put off,” Grimes told Courier Journal, adding that her office will prioritize counties that currently rely on paperless equipment.
But several officials in Kentucky counties that use those machines said they don’t see a reason to transition to paper-trail voting machines. Some even purchased the new paperless machines as recently as 2015.
“Why would anyone even question the integrity of the voting system and the clerks in the state of Kentucky?” said Dean Johnson, county clerk of Laurel County.
Voters in his county use the ES&S iVotronic. It was one of the machines hacked last year at DEFCON.
Full Article: Kentucky wants to replace its voting machines.